orange hard cider?

[ciderbearlord]

Hey guys, besides all the definition rambles I've actually been interested in making different fruit-cider style drinks for a while now due to the lack of apples in my area.

Right now I have an orange, lemon, lime and strawberry batch in the works. I'm not sure whether to call it fruit wine or something cider.
(However, depending on the fruits.. Like say you use pear.. It's known as Perry or as some people call it Pear-cider.)

But it doesn't seem to matter. I've been trying to keep a consistency with the yeast I've used in all my batches. So for the next one coming up I have, orange, pear and peach all using a Nottingham yeast. The only thing that varies are the nutrients.

Pretty excited to taste them all. Ill let you guys know how it comes out in a week.

 

[nitack]

Perceptions:

Grain = beer
Honey = meed
fruit -apples + higher ABV = wine
co2 + wine = champaign/sparkling wine
apples = cider

and maybe
fruit - apples + lower ABV + or - sweetenss + or - co2 = winecoolers, hard soda, hard lemonade & more but is ≠to wine

+1 million for mathamatizing alcohol definitions

 

[outside92129]

I'm a bit late to this thread but I have come across orange cider/wine in the south pacific. It was just like apple cider, but made with oranges instead. It was good and it'll knock you on your a$$ (way above 8.5%). I (nor they) know what yeast was used, per oral tradition it's from the skin of the oranges (but they inoculate with some of the trub of the previous batch).

 

[Apple_Jacker]

I've read nothing but terrible things about the smell of fermented orange juice. Someone should try it, just not me ;-)

 

[siletzspey]

I had the good fortune of drinking orange bush beer at a Tumu Nu on the Island of Atiu in the Cook Islands. I found the drink both flavorful and pleasant. For visitors lucky enough to get an invite to a Tumu Nu session, it's customary to donate a bucket of oranges or $5.

Though I was never able to get a recipe, I did learn that bananas, pineapples and other fruits are also used.

The closest I've come to a recipe is in:

http://books.google.com/books?id=RGBY9yvybVgC&pg=PA75&lpg=PA75&dq=atiu+island+orange+bush+beer

In summary: one basket of oranges, peel and place in sack, squash and strain juice into container by hand, put wild honey or sugar in, let set for 3-4 nights.

--SiletzSpey

 

[outside92129]

Siletzpey- You're one of the few people i've bumped into who's experienced it, most people skip the cooks : ( Which tumanu did you go to? Aretou/Sam and the Boys had us over. Thanks for the article link, i'm trying to replicate the brew now as we speak. I sorta got their recipe (below) but the article has more detail. Unfortunately I don't have their yeast so i'm using S-05 for a clean ferment.

AppleJacker - I thought it was really good! It didn't smell bad at all. The tumanu style/setting is a very social way of drinking, completely different from our bar scene!

I got the following from Roger Malcom (kiwi ex-pat that moved to the island 30+ years and built his own hotel. I have to plug his place, highly recommended! Atui isn't for everyone though)
http://www.atiuvillas.com/

Kia Orana-
The yeast is from oranges. I believe there is just one yeast strain
circulating on Atiu at present. A small amount of the yeast sediment of
the last brew is used to start the next brew. The original strain came
from starting a brew with oranges some ripe, some green, to give a
bitter flavour. When oranges are not in season we use malt, hops and
sugar, the normal ingredients.

 

[siletzspey]

Outside - I can't recall which tumunu, but our hosts treated us very well, and Marshall (local guide) drove us back to Roger's place. All that, plus a day with Birdman George, plus the local dance/drum group, made Atiu the single best vacation my wife and I have ever been on. On our recent second trip, we visited Mangaia, and while not famous for bush-beer like Atiu, I learned that many of the islands use a variety of fruits to make their brews, and bananas in particular may be a common supplement. While on Aitutaki and Mau'ke, bush beer making was far less evident.

Seeing Roger's comment about malt + hops is great. That confirms my guess that there was the real and simple orange+sugar+yeast drink, and malt+hops was a separate drink.

--SiletzSpey

 

[outside92129]

Wow, you're bringing back memories! Here's a pic of the tumunu in Aretou with 4 tourists crashing the party, you can make out the 5gal bucket of hooch in the middle of the circle and the bar man behind it. And i didn't know about the brew session beforehand, i'd like to pitch next time around.

I'm thinking i need to go back, this time w/ the kids.

 

[Texconsinite]

Firstly, I don't care what a cider is OFFICIALLY defined as. If its bubbly, made from fruit, and not strong enough to call a sparkling wine, I'm calling it a cider for lack of a better term. And nobody can stop me, because I homebrew so I get to put whatever I want on the label

NOW to actually respond to the OP:
I wondered the same thing, and made a gallon of cider with Pineapple Orange Juice awhile back. I wasn't really sure how to account for differences in acidity or sugar content, so I just put in a little more yeast nutrient than I would've for apple juice.
I fermented the straight juice (no sugar added) on a US-04 yeast cake from an apple cider that I had just bottled, thinking that the existing cake might have a better chance surviving the acidic conditions than a new packet trying to get started. It fermented like crazy, so that worked.

I transferred to bottling bucket after two weeks, and it smelled like VOMIT. I thought it might be ruined, it was very bitter and tart, so I backsweetend with 1 can apple juice concentrate. Still tasted too tart, so I also added a can of Old Orchard 100% berry blend Concentrate to hopefully salvage something sweet enough to be drinkable. SWMBO thought it was ok after that.

Ironically it fermented to 6.66% ABV, and tasted like death, so I quickly labeled it Super Devil Juice on bottling day, and chalked it up as a failed experiment. I was pleasantly surprised when I tried it carbed, pasterurized and chilled. SWMBO liked it as well. Also, the 2 cans of Concentrate I backsweetened with to "save" it caused it to carb up quick before I pasteurized, so it foams like a banshee when you crack a bottle, but its drinkable.
I think with citrus, moreso than apple, the carbing and chilling makes a big difference. Kinda like the difference btw warm Dr. Pepper and ice cold one. The acidic, pukey taste is subsided, and more of the (other) fruit flavors balance out some of the citrus bite after it had some time to age and chill.

The Berry blend kinda carries the flavor (i was hoping it did), but the citrus is still very present, and you cant even taste the apple. Im not sure how this wouldve tasted if I had stuck w citrus and backsweetened with a can of Orange Juice Concentrate, but even with the delicious Berry Blend's help, its not an experiment i plan to repeat.
For the finished flavor I got, I wouldve rather started with a Berry blend juice (which probably has apple juice as first ingredient anyways), and backsweeten with the BB. Then Id get the berry sweetness without the citrusy tartness, which I think wouldve been addition by subtraction.

I think the pineapple really what made it gross, as they can have that insipid taste sometimes, so this might have better success as just an OJ beverage without pineapple. Unfortunately, I bailed out at bottling time in this citrus journey, so if someone else is brave enough to try this, try to ignore the smell when backsweetening and just realize it will taste sweeter when its cold and bubbly. Maybe using sweet citrus fruits like clementines or mandarin orange would also yield better results. Just say no to Pineapple, and I wouldn't try grapefruit either.

Good luck, hope that helps OP.

 

[worlddivides]

I'm honestly really confused about why people are arguing over clearly understood definitions that are STRICTLY defined and have been strictly defined in the English language for hundreds of years.

The reason the word "cider" even exists is solely tradition.

If an alcoholic drink is made from fruit, REGARDLESS of what alcoholic percentage, it is wine. You can find wine made from grapes that is as low as 5% alcohol. It is still wine. Without a clarifying word, "wine" means made from grapes. Cider is the one special term among wines in English. Partially because in most regions grapes and apples were the only fruits used for alcoholic beverages.

In some languages, the word for "cider" is literally "apple wine" (for example, in German). And, even in English, the words "cider" and "apple wine" can be used interchangeably, although "apple wine" does tend to have an image of higher alcohol concentration. There is, of course, a lot of confusion in the US because "cider" in American English can also refer to unfiltered apple juice, which is just called "unfiltered apple juice" in other countries like the UK and Australia. The term cider itself originated solely to refer to the alcoholic product of apples. Any alcoholic level is okay, but up until somewhat "recently" apple juice only resulted in beverages of alcoholic levels between 2% and 7% (many traditional French ciders have alcoholic levels near 2%).

Just confused why people are arguing over something where there is no room for arguing. Just like you can't call a Russian Imperial Stout "a distilled beverage," you can't call a peach wine a "peach cider" unless there are apples in there (and even then, you're really walking a fine line).





Back to the subject at hand, I've asked wine makers about this before and I was told that the main reason that wines are very rarely made from citric fruits (oranges, grapefruits, lemons, limes, etc.) is because it takes a hell of a long time to make them palatable and oftentimes they never get palatable. I believe also that there are not a lot of yeast strains that do very well in such an acidic environment (especially with more acidic citric fruits like lemons and limes, but also with oranges, grapefruits, and so on).

That said, you can definitely make an orange wine. The question is whether you would want to.

 

[siletzspey]

Hum... Cook Island orange "beer" ;-) is only fermented for a few days before serving. Maybe short fermentation times are appropriate? I've also gotten some hints that bananas are used, and googling them, I see bananas are considered alkaline (once the sugar is burned off), and used to balance out acids. Just guessing here.

Outside - Aretou was also the Tumunu I attended.

--SiletzSpey

 

[siletzspey]

Orange wine recipes at http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/reques33.asp

--SiletzSpey

 

[outside92129]

Yeah, i recall a very short fermentation time in their description of the process. I have 6 gallons bubbling away now, it's taking quite a bit longer (2 weeks so far), i'll let you know if it matches my memory. My recipe is similar to ones in the link you posted, i'm making it just like Ed Wort's apfelwein (with the obvious substitutions of course). Also added a dash of peptic enzyme as i read that orange juice is 3x higher in peptin than apple juice, and apple juice is already on the high end of normally fermented ingredients.

Either way i'll post my results in a couple of weeks.

 

[outside92129]

Kegged the orange cider today, and it's a bit... weird. Finished at .995, really dry. Because of the lack of residual sugars the orange tartness really comes through. The smell isn't bad, but it's not good either. We'll see how it is at drinking temperature plus some carbing, i'll report back in a couple of weeks.

If anyone has any ideas for the next round please chime in. I'm thinking about adding the bananas like SiletzSpey said.

 

[Swiller]

http://www.alcohol.org.nz/sites/default/files/research-publications/pdfs/Kaikava_0.pdf

Interesting read, and history of the drink. Has info too... They make it in a coconut tree. Has hops in it too... Ferments in the ground.

 

[Oberon67]

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/apples-oranges-1-gallon-batch-521915/

 

[Dominic1920]

Wow Oberon, this is one old thread back from the dead, the OP is from 2012. Interesting though, I was at a commercial orchard the other day where they grow all kinds of citrus, the oranges, tangerines and lemons had been harvested, but there were alot of fruit on the ground. so I picked up the best stuff including some giant pink grapefruit that were so sweet it was like honey. I juiced a bunch and loosely followed a jack keller recipe. Interestingly it called for peels too, but the skin an the fruit off the ground was dried out and tough, I ended up grating some like zest but not nearly as much as the recipe called for.

 

[Oberon67]

Yeah, I know... I was actually doing a Bing search for orange cider and the link popped up. Given the high OG of my little project, I'm pretty certain I'll have to call it Apple Wine. Hopefully the orange flavor will come through reasonably well.