home brew cider

fryup

after a hard days slog in the garden today, I quenched my thirst by having a drink of homebrew that i bottled back in december......ahhh delicious

stimpson

How do you resist the temptation for so long? I decided the only way I'll be able to age mine is by increasing production beyond what I can drink. So after bottling 3 gallons last night I immediately put on a new 5 gallon brew. I also dropped into Superquinn as they have Fruice on Buy one get one free. 50 liters for 34 quid. I think the offer ends tomorrow so be quick if you want to pick some up!

One thing I noticed is that my last batch tastes more appley than my first attempts. I put it down to using a mixture of 3 different brands of juice.

tony 2 tone

Am trying me hand at this home brew stuff, have started some "turbo" cider and need some advice about how long to leave it. I take it as the longer the better.
I have 5 litres of juice in a demi with a packet of cider yeast and a yeast nutrient. Will the nutient shorten the fermenting time at all? Its only been five days so far but the bubbles seem to have stopped.
Or will I just go by the 1-2-3 method (that I read here) don't have a secondary container though.
It smells savage, I would nearly drink it now!

stimpson

If you haven't added sugar (ie it's just juice) then it's probably done fermenting. The only way to tell for sure is to check the gravity with a hydrometer. When you get the same reading 2 or 3 days in a row then you're done fermenting and can bottle. You can also calculate your alcohol content.

If you're not sure then I'd leave it a couple more days. I have a 5 gallon batch on the go about 2 weeks now and it's still bubbling away (although I did add nearly 2 kilos of golden syrup!)

Having a second demijohn isn't strictly necessary, but it makes it easier to leave the yeast behind when you are bottling. If you're not fussy about that and are happy to drink it flat then you don't even need to bottle - you can serve straight from the fermenter.

tony 2 tone

Thanks for that. I didn't add any extra sugar, first brew, will experiment with future attempts. On closer inspection it is still bubbling, so will have to be patient.
Have four 750ml swing top bottles, and a 1L one that I will use to bottle and stick the remainder in plastic coke bottles and hope for the best!

GY A1

Degsy wrote: »

Go for it..i shall be buying a few gallons of that myself later...might add some grape juice as well to see what happens.

made a batch of turbo cider using apple and grape juice from liddle and bottled 2 weeks ago,
added
12 ltrs apple juice
6 ltrs grap juice
300 grams sugar in 1 ltr water
cup strong tea
cider yeast
wrote down sg and fg but cant remember off hand,
tried a bottle this evening and its carbonated nicely but kinda dry,
has a fairly sour ish after taste but drinkable
i suppose this after taste is from the grape juice,
anyone else tried a apple/ grape mixture

hardCopy

stimpson wrote: »

If you haven't added sugar (ie it's just juice) then it's probably done fermenting. The only way to tell for sure is to check the gravity with a hydrometer. When you get the same reading 2 or 3 days in a row then you're done fermenting and can bottle. You can also calculate your alcohol content.

If you're not sure then I'd leave it a couple more days. I have a 5 gallon batch on the go about 2 weeks now and it's still bubbling away (although I did add nearly 2 kilos of golden syrup!)

Having a second demijohn isn't strictly necessary, but it makes it easier to leave the yeast behind when you are bottling. If you're not fussy about that and are happy to drink it flat then you don't even need to bottle - you can serve straight from the fermenter.

Any particular reason for using golden syrup over regular sugar? Does it contain unfermentable sugars?

stimpson

GY A1 wrote: »

made a batch of turbo cider using apple and grape juice from liddle and bottled 2 weeks ago,
added
12 ltrs apple juice
6 ltrs grap juice
300 grams sugar in 1 ltr water
cup strong tea
cider yeast
wrote down sg and fg but cant remember off hand,
tried a bottle this evening and its carbonated nicely but kinda dry,
has a fairly sour ish after taste but drinkable
i suppose this after taste is from the grape juice,
anyone else tried a apple/ grape mixture

I did a gallon of 50/50 apple and grape with 200g sugar. Finished at 8.1%. Opened one the other night and it was pretty good. I do like my cider dry though. I got some wine tanin today so it will be good to see how it effects the flavour. I was advised to use Malic acid instead of lemon juice as it's meant to be more "appley". Will get some soon and try it out. Also glycerine is meant to improve mouthfeel so I'll try some of that too.

stimpson

hardCopy wrote: »

Any particular reason for using golden syrup over regular sugar? Does it contain unfermentable sugars?

It was on sale in Aldi after pancake Tuesday

_blank_

I want to try my hand at something "different".

The mrs likes Kopparberg Strawberry & Lime, and I happen to have some home grown strawberries that I was going to use to make jam, but I'm thinking I'll try to flavour some cider with them.

I'm going to use Lidl Apple juice, and make perhaps 5 litres of cider to start off, and maybe tweak in later recipes.

How much lime juice would I need to impart a discernible flavour?

I'm going to try and make a strawberry syrup by boiling them in sugar and water and straining them to give me something to add to the cider at priming time.

Would I still need the tea in there?

Degsy

Des wrote: »

I want to try my hand at something "different".

The mrs likes Kopparberg Strawberry & Lime, and I happen to have some home grown strawberries that I was going to use to make jam, but I'm thinking I'll try to flavour some cider with them.

I'm going to use Lidl Apple juice, and make perhaps 5 litres of cider to start off, and maybe tweak in later recipes.

How much lime juice would I need to impart a discernible flavour?

I'm going to try and make a strawberry syrup by boiling them in sugar and water and straining them to give me something to add to the cider at priming time.



Would I still need the tea in there?

The thing is that strawberry juice and lime juice will ferment out dry as a bone if you put them in at the primary phase..i did the same with blaccurrants and although it turned the cider a different colour it hardly affected teh flavour..the same with strawberries.

Best thing to do is make a basic turbo cider and add your starwberry syrup or lime juice into a secondary vessel for a while before you bottle...also it will help if you sweeten with Splenda or something similar as the secondary fermentation will use up most of the sweetness in the sugar and give you a very dry drink.