5L Demijohn Mini Cider Brews

[Ghillie]

Hi guys,

Planning doing some small experimental cider brews. The Mrs likes the stuff, but I don't really care for it. She also doesn't really drink enough to warrant me turning out 23L batches. So I was thinking about mini brews in a demijohn and bottle condition the end product.

Might sound like a dumb question, but how to get the cider into bottles from the demijohn? All I can think of at the minute is a funnel and gently pour into the bottles, which are filled with appropriate amounts of corn sugar?

My process when bottle conditioning beer was to go from the FV to the bottling bucket, bottling bucket to bottles with a wand. But that was easy as both buckets had taps on the bottom...

Cheers!

 

[MagnusTS]

I also do cider in a 5L demijohn, for the same reasons - 23L would be too much cider for me.

I still use a bottling bucket though, as I find syphoning into bottles a bit tricky. I find it difficult to keep an eye on both ends of the syphon at once.

So I just syphon from the DJ into the bottling bucket and mix with the priming sugar solution there. Then bottle from the bottling bucket using a 'Little Bottler'. It's the same bottling bucket that I use for my 23L beers. 5L looks like a very small volume in a 23L bucket, but it still works fine.

Recently I bought a 12L Speidel FV to make the small scale brews a bit easier. It has a tap for hassle free transfers. And the extra volume means I have a lot of headroom to prevent foam-overs, and I can bump up the volume I am brewing if I want a few extra bottles.

 

[Ghillie]

I also do cider in a 5L demijohn, for the same reasons - 23L would be too much cider for me.

I still use a bottling bucket though, as I find syphoning into bottles a bit tricky. I find it difficult to keep an eye on both ends of the syphon at once.

So I just syphon from the DJ into the bottling bucket and mix with the priming sugar solution there. Then bottle from the bottling bucket using a 'Little Bottler'. It's the same bottling bucket that I use for my 23L beers. 5L looks like a very small volume in a 23L bucket, but it still works fine.

Recently I bought a 12L Speidel FV to make the small scale brews a bit easier. It has a tap for hassle free transfers. And the extra volume means I have a lot of headroom to prevent foam-overs, and I can bump up the volume I am brewing if I want a few extra bottles.

Thanks Magnus.

I do have a little bottler and valve, so I could get myself a wee 5L bucket and use that.

Any recommendations for a cheap wee siphon? I did have an auto-siphon; but I sent it back as the valve was dodgy.

 

[MagnusTS]

I never had any joy with an autosyphon either. It seemed to suck air through with it, and would often stop working mid-syphon.

I just got a really cheap simple syphon from Wilko. I'm not great with syphons, but it works OK. I prime it with water to start it off.

https://www.wilko.com/en-uk/wilko-syphon-pack/p/0022573

I think you can get a 'Young's Simple Syphon' from Amazon for about £5. I took the tap off the end of mine and made it even simpler.

 

[Ghillie]

Aye that's what was wrong with mine. If you still have it, I have a brand new seal that I can post to you. Apparently it fixes the problem...

Yeah that's my kind of price range for this experimental cider project. I've also come across this wee thing on eBay which I quite like the look of.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Brew-Syp...pid=1288244757&hash=item442e0421e9:rk:16:pf:0

 

[MagnusTS]

I've actually got one of those. Not used it much, but the pump thing does work to prime the syphon. It doesn't come with a stiff racking cane, so I took the racking cane off a simple syphon and cobbled together a hybrid. But since I got the Speidel mini-FV with a tap, I've not had much cause to use the super-syphon.

 

[MagnusTS]

..oh, and the tubing was a nasty hard plastic, and was quite hard to handle, so I replaced it with a bit of silicone tube. So not much left of the original .

 

[Ghillie]

..oh, and the tubing was a nasty hard plastic, and was quite hard to handle, so I replaced it with a bit of silicone tube. So not much left of the original .

I'll give it a miss then buddy, it doesn't sound too great. I have loads of bits of hose lying around so I might just cobble something together.

 

[MagnusTS]

Good plan. I reckon the simpler the better for syphons.