Cider Recipe

Loanshark Blues

Hi,
I've recently started brewing at home. I made a few batches of cider from the Magnum kits but I'd like to have a go at making some from juice (it'll be easier to make a smaller amount and save me the trouble of buying online all the time). Could anyone recommend a recipe? I'm new to it so a real dummy's guide would be very much appreciated.

Cheers

BeerNut

Here's a small batch recipe.

Put 5L of Lidl cloudy apple juice in a sanitised demijohn.
Sprinkle in a sachet of Young's cider yeast.
Leave it for a month at room temperature.
In a saucepan, dissolve 30g of sugar and 15g of Splenda in a 500ml or so of hot water.
Boil for five minutes and let cool with the lid on.
Sanitise another demijohn or a stockpot.
Add the sugar solution.
Syphon the cider in on top of it.
Bottle.
Wait 3-6 months.
Drink.

You can scale it to whatever size you want, adjusting the juice, sugar and Splenda amounts accordingly.

Loanshark Blues

Cheers for the reply, I'll give it a go.

Khannie

I am mad for this stuff, but I have two slight alterations....

Firstly, I have found that the addition of some boiled raisins and tea that has had the arse boiled out of it makes all the difference to the flavour. Get raisins with no added oil though - the sunmaid ones are good. I also use 50 / 50 caf and decaf teabags, largely because I usually have scoops before bed and caffeine, even in small quantity, would keep me awake so I try to minimise it.

The tea bags are supposedly to add tannin. I tried adding actual tannin and it's not as nice as the tea variety for whatever reason so I'm back to tea.

BeerNut wrote: »

Wait 3-6 months.

This is way too long for anyone who doesn't have the patience of a saint. It is drinkable within 2 weeks and decent within a month. I must say though that it is sublime after 3+ months (IMO anyway). I just drink it faster than I can brew it.

loyatemu

Khannie wrote: »

I am mad for this stuff, but I have two slight alterations....

Firstly, I have found that the addition of some boiled raisins and tea that has had the arse boiled out of it makes all the difference to the flavour. Get raisins with no added oil though - the sunmaid ones are good. I also use 50 / 50 caf and decaf teabags, largely because I usually have scoops before bed and caffeine, even in small quantity, would keep me awake so I try to minimise it.

The tea bags are supposedly to add tannin. I tried adding actual tannin and it's not as nice as the tea variety for whatever reason so I'm back to tea.

so a few teabags and a handful of raisins boiled in a pot? How much of this liquid for a demijohn's worth of cider?

Khannie

loyatemu wrote: »

so a few teabags and a handful of raisins boiled in a pot? How much of this liquid for a demijohn's worth of cider?

Not much. I don't really measure it tbh, but it's easy to overdo it with the raisins. I've ended up priming with apple juice to try to reduce the ABV a bit. A handful would be too much for 5L. After I've boiled them up, I blend them with a "wand" just enough to break the skins / expose the sugars.

sharingan

Khannie wrote: »

This is way too long for anyone who doesn't have the patience of a saint. It is drinkable within 2 weeks and decent within a month. I must say though that it is sublime after 3+ months (IMO anyway). I just drink it faster than I can brew it.

Thats a lesson that every brewer has to learn :-)

Over produce, and you always have a supply. Also bottle into smaller bottles, rather than 2L PET bottles. Your hooch will last longer.

But yeah, there are a ton of tricks you can do with basic turbo cider. The boiled tea makes a huge difference (and you can experiment with herbal teas also).

stenan

Around what percentage of alcohol is this turbo cider and does it work out much cheaper?

Mr Benevolent

stenan wrote: »

Around what percentage of alcohol is this turbo cider and does it work out much cheaper?

About 5% depending on the apple juice, and it depends. Homebrewers don't usually brew because it's cheaper, they brew because they like making alcohol to their taste. It's certainly more expensive than throat ripping crap cider.

In my experience, it cost me €29 to make 13L of alcohol - 4.33l each of cider @ 10%, honey cider @ 13% and honey wine @15%.

Conmaicne Mara

BeerNut wrote: »

Here's a small batch recipe.

Put 5L of Lidl cloudy apple juice in a sanitised demijohn.
Sprinkle in a sachet of Young's cider yeast.
Leave it for a month at room temperature.
In a saucepan, dissolve 30g of sugar and 15g of Splenda in a 500ml or so of hot water.
Boil for five minutes and let cool with the lid on.
Sanitise another demijohn or a stockpot.
Add the sugar solution.
Syphon the cider in on top of it.
Bottle.
Wait 3-6 months.
Drink.

You can scale it to whatever size you want, adjusting the juice, sugar and Splenda amounts accordingly.

I can't remember without looking at the other thread, but I found when I added apple juice as a primer it was nicer than the sugar or splenda I was replacing (one or t'other I forget which).

stenan

Khannie wrote: »

I am mad for this stuff, but I have two slight alterations....

Firstly, I have found that the addition of some boiled raisins and tea that has had the arse boiled out of it makes all the difference to the flavour. Get raisins with no added oil though - the sunmaid ones are good. I also use 50 / 50 caf and decaf teabags, largely because I usually have scoops before bed and caffeine, even in small quantity, would keep me awake so I try to minimise it.

The tea bags are supposedly to add tannin. I tried adding actual tannin and it's not as nice as the tea variety for whatever reason so I'm back to tea.



This is way too long for anyone who doesn't have the patience of a saint. It is drinkable within 2 weeks and decent within a month. I must say though that it is sublime after 3+ months (IMO anyway). I just drink it faster than I can brew it.

So the tea bag and raisins mix goes in at the start? Trying my first batch :-)

stenan

Right so I just put it all together. Attached some pics for people to see. Added juice, boiled tea and raisons and yeast. Then locked up with airlock for the next 2 weeks in my bath tub. Is that right? Also theres no bubbles yet. Does this take 24 hours to get going and does it need sun light or direct sun light? Hope the pics help some noobie like myself :-)