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Trader Joe's Pink Lady juice

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If all I can get is "eating apples", this blend has worked for me:
40% Jonagold/Jonathan
20% Yellow Delicious
20% Mactintosh
20% Whatever else interesting I can find, Braeburn, Cameo, N. Spy, Goldrush,
Ida Red, York, Fuji, crabapples, but keep the "tart" apples to 10%.
Note that any apples you find in a store were picked before they are ripe, letting them sit for a while and ripen up will make better juice.

Those are all supposed to be good cider apples if you don't like tannin. Reportedly goldrush makes for a fantastic base.
 
There's a local cider mill that does a special pressing for hard cider makers once a year. The blend varies each year but it's always excellent. This year's blend is:

70% Winesap
22% Empire
4% Northern Spy
2% Quince
2% Dabinett & Aronia berries

Still oaking in secondary, haven't sampled it yet.
 
There's a local cider mill that does a special pressing for hard cider makers once a year. The blend varies each year but it's always excellent. This year's blend is:

70% Winesap
22% Empire
4% Northern Spy
2% Quince
2% Dabinett & Aronia berries

Still oaking in secondary, haven't sampled it yet.

Mines just aging in a glass carboy. Darker that others in appearance. But clearing nicely. I used Brewers Best Cider House Select yeast. Did you let yours go wild?
 
Mines just aging in a glass carboy. Darker that others in appearance. But clearing nicely. I used Brewers Best Cider House Select yeast. Did you let yours go wild?

Only a half gallon of it is wild. It took off quickly, probably use it as top off somewhere down the line. This batch is with Renaissance Fresco cider yeast from last year.

Had to top off my secondary 20 ltr Spidel and used Lyman Orchards cider bought at Big Y.
 
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After two days of squeezing apples and a trip to Whole Foods for juice I just put together three 1 gallon batches. Just hit them with a campden tablet. Tomorrow afternoon they will get pectic enzyme and about twelve hours later they will get yeast.

The first two batches are a mix of Newtown Pippin, Granny Smith, McIntosh, Red Delicious, and a tiny bit of quince. The first batch has more granny, the second has more Newtown Pippin. The Red Delicious was used in small amounts as an aromatic.

The third batch is two quarts of Whole Foods gravenstein apple juice and the remainder the regular Whole Foods apple juice in the gallon glass jug.

I want to try different yeasts and I just got some CY17 and SN9 (Vintner's Harvest, I think). The third I'm not sure. Probably Mangrove Jack's M02.

If there aren't enough tannins I will add grape tannin. If my malolactic culture grows enough I will probably add some of them in when the fermentation is done or nearly done.

New Seasons had a gallon of generic but seasonal juice so I picked a gallon up. It's from Hood River Juice Company and says it was pressed from Oregon and Washington apples.

One of the apples I am seeing now in the stores is Opal. Has anyone used that in cider? I assume it's a late season apple because it is suddenly all over the place.
 

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