Cider making advice

[DavieC]

The demijohn with some of the juice with too much campden and a carton of fresh juice is showing a little bit of activity today, but not enough to bubble through the airlock.

I may need to try decanting, stirring and splashing to try to remove the sulphide AND dilute with Aldi's fresh apple juice in order to save the brew.

I suspect that even the recommended amount of 2.5g campden powder per gallon is still way too much.

 

[lium]

Did you mean to impart some sage advice?

 

[DavieC]

Must be powerful stuff.I hope you can save it and end up with good cider I appreciate the work involved juicing the apples! I'll keep watching this thread to see how you go on.fingers crossed.

 

[lium]

Quite a lot of effort went into this so I'm not willing to give up on it!

 

[LED_ZEP]

Just a suggestion but how about getting about 4l of supermarket apple juice fermenting in a another FV then every other day double the volume with your stuck brew i.e add 4l after two days and then 8l after four days. It will give the yeast a chance to get going hopefully the proportionally small additions will not stop the yeasties multiplying if it is the campden that's killing the ferment.

 

[lium]

Just a suggestion but how about getting about 4l of supermarket apple juice fermenting in a another FV then every other day double the volume with your stuck brew i.e add 4l after two days and then 8l after four days. It will give the yeast a chance to get going hopefully the proportionally small additions will not stop the yeasties multiplying if it is the campden that's killing the ferment.

Thanks for the advice - I may give that a shot.

 

[phillc]

Quite a lot of effort went into this so I'm not willing to give up on it!

Did you build that press yourself? If so, nice job! It looks very good and I'm sure works well too.

 

[lium]

Did you build that press yourself? If so, nice job! It looks very good and I'm sure works well too.

Yes, built with my own fair hand! Loosely based on this design:

http://www.the-gift-of-wine.com/cider press.html

Although I used whole pieces of plywood (just because I had some) which makes it stronger. I also switched to a bottle jack as the scissors jack is not suitable! I will also need to revise my cheese-building as it was difficult to prevent it going off-centre and collapsing. Will need to use some sort of metal bucket with holes in, or something.

The most successful part of the operation was freezing and defrosting the apples, which made them easy to smash up and produced more juice, as well as preserving them until I was ready to press them. I didn't need a scratter - just bashed them up in a bucket with a (non-chemically treated) wooden post. I have a large freezer though!

 

[lium]

I am pleased to report that, suddenly, my fermentation kicked off over the weekend!

After trying various things such as champagne yeast, decanting, starting a fermentation with shop-bought apple juice and mixing it in, it suddenly started over the weekend! It was a very vigorous fermentation as well. Because I'd added shop juice I have two fermentation vessels - one smelt awful - 'rhino farts' is the phrase I've heard people use. I'd added more yeast nutrient to address that, and a penny from 1981! I added some of the violently fermenting (It was literally boiling!) one to the rhino farts one in the hope of improving it.

That was a couple of days ago an the fermentation has slowed right down now. I will probably take hydrometer readings later in the week - I suspect it will be time to bottle it soon. Who knows what it will taste like? It might be awful!

 

[lium]

By the way, another thing I tried was making a ph tester with red cabbage water - I established that my cider was quite acidic, so added chalk. I did read that high acidity juice does not need campden powder at all.

 

[DavieC]

Good to hear its brewing, hopefully it'll taste fine and been worth sticking with it.All good experience anyway. I await the tasting!