Very Basic Hard Cider

[patrickwolfe]

Yesterday I brewed my first hard cider.

Ingredients:
Five 1 gallon jugs of 100% Warlmart Apple Juice - $3.99 x 5 = $19.95
One 2 lb bag of Walmart Light Brown Sugar - $1.89
One 1lb of Walmart Honey (used the honey bear) - $2.50
Two packets of Champagne Yeast $3.00

Total Cost was $27.34

Directions:
Pure all 5 gallon jugs into a sanitized bucket.
Stir in 2 lbs of Brown sugar and 1 lb of honey.
Using a large spoon, ensure ingredients are fully mixed.
Transfer the bucket of mixed cider into a glass sanitized 6.5 gallon carboy

Hydrate the cider by shaking the carboy for a few minutes.

Pitch the champagne yest.

After 12 hours, the carboy is bubbling like crazy !!!!!

Has anyone bottled a similar type of cider? If so, how was it and what were the circumstance?

Has anyone ever tried to dry hopping this with fresh cinnamon sticks?

Let me know your thoughts on the basic hard cider and how it will come out.


My goal is to bottle using Fizz Drops shortly after the fermentation stops. Any advise on bottling cider.

Any Advise will be appreciated.

Thanks

 

[SeeAliceBrewery]

My biggest concern is how well the honey and brown sugar was able to blend and mix into your cider. Generally I would heat up a couple gallons of the juice on the stove to mix in my sugars...

 

[Unferth]

Heating up juice activates pectins which makes your cider hazy and can cause extra methyl alcohols to occur during fermentation.

Re: OP, your cider will ferment out fine, you really only needed one packet of champagne yeast. Not that it will hurt to use two, if anything it will make it easier on the yeast.

I've not done this exact recipe before, but I've done similar, and I can tell you it will turn out very dry, tart, and somewhat bland. You can start checking the ph, or you can just add acid blend and/or wine tannin to taste if you want something a bit more cidery'.

The bottling will be fine, just treat it as beer.

If you want a sweeter cider, just backsweeten, prime (fizz drops, etc) and wait till carbed appropriately. When ready (not too fizzy) bottle pasteurize via instructions at top of cider forum.

Cheers

 

[patrickwolfe]

Thanks for all your advice. I will probably try the bottle pasteurization. What benefits does bottle pasteurization provide?

Does anyone have an idea how much alcohol % this method might yield? The airlock has been bubbling non-stop for 3 days. I have a feeling its gonna be high alcohol. I have a hydrometer, but still have no clue how to use it.

Thanks, I really appreciate everything.

 

[bernardsmith]

The potential alcohol content of your cider? Ballpark? The 3 lbs of sugar in 5 gallons will probably raise the gravity of your must by about .024. My guess is the apple juice is likely to have a gravity of about 1.045, so the total gravity would be about 1.070. If this ferments dry you will have an ABV of about 9%,

 

[EpicCider]

You know this is going to rock some people's world, but I did an experiment recently with light brown sugar, honey, and molasses. I would say that Honey tasted by far the worst.

I think your recipe looks great.