Cloudy cider recipe for a newbie

[PashTheMash]

Evening all,

I'm new to this brewing lark so please be gentle!!!

A mate (Firkin Idiot) and I have just ordered our first brewing kits so are really keen to go. However, I've just bagged a spare fermenting barrel off my brother so intend to use this for a cider brew side project. To make things even better, good ol' Jim across the road has kindly donated 10kg of home grown apples to get us on our way.

What I'm looking for is a good old simple cloudy/scrumpy cider recipe. Or maybe even a scrumpy-turbo cross (if such a thing exists). All help will be gratefully received and hopefully we should be able to post later with some positive results.

Cheers,

Pash

 

[tubthumper]

you need to crush the apples then press them to get the juice (or use a juicer)
you wont get too much juice from them though
other than that put it in bucket (up to you if you add campdem tab or not)
then either let it ferment on wild yeast or if used campden add your yeast.
then just wait
have seen it suggested that you put it in the shed and leave till the summer and bottle it with a bit of sugar or apple juice to get fizzy or just bottle for flat cider

 

[Firkin Idiot]

right then....
Pash the mash and myself spent most of friday night chopping an juicing apples and finally (3 1/2 hrs later) filled a dj with appley goodness. to this we added some white and brown sugar (about 500g's in total) and a sachet of wine yeast.
This was then sealed with an bung/airlock and then we wrapped a brewbelt round it to get things going.
It is currently fizzing away like a good'un and is the colour (and clarity) or watered down chip shop curry.
We figured that its going to be pretty strong due to the wine yeast and should clear...to a certain degree...but we were then planning on passing through a filter and then bottling for a bit, but ideally to drink at christmas.

This said, we were wondering if we could get any advice regarding the questions below:

1. we only added about 500g of sugar in total - should we be looking to add some more or maybe some honey given the type of yeast we used?
2. how long do we have to leave before 'using' it?
3. does any of the description of how we made it point to the possibility of us getting 5 litres of sarsons?

Thanks for any input.
FI

 

[tubthumper]

the only way you will get vinigar is if the fly gets to the brew or you didnt sterilise/sanitise everything beofre you did it
campden tab gives a good chance to avoide it untill yeasts gets a go

you might be surprised with the after effects of using sugar it will produce headaches the next day which just apple juice is unlikely to. so up to you if you add more sugar but I wouldn't as it will probly be too sweet.
did you take a reading of the applejuice and sugar?
as to how long well when it stops bubbling and the reading is close to 1.000 you should have a fairly dry cider 0.990 should be dry and above 1.010 should be sweetish

so leave it and keep an eye on it it will start to clear when its clear with a sediment at the bottom chill it and let it compact a bit
then rack it into another demijohn and leave untill you can bear it no longer have a taste then leave it alone as long as you can and keep tasting untill its the best then drink whats left , but I have heard that some ciders are left for a year in the cold to ferment
get another brew on the go and if you brew befor eyou have finished you should start to have something to drink continuiosly
try a turbo cider as thats much quicker

 

[Firkin Idiot]

thanks for that

we were careful to sterilise everything we used so hope it will be okay then.
With regards adding more sugar - we'd seen lots of recipe's that had loads and loads of sugar in them so thats why we put some in (token amount really) so we'll probably leave it at that.
totally forgot to take a reading before sealing up. is it possible to find the alcohol reading if we didnt take one before starting? not got to the testing stage yet with the cider or beer - will need to brush up on that part next once the bubbles subside (appologies for all the daft questions - we could probably find the answers in the numerous threads but really do appreciate your help)

cheers

FI

 

[Green Pesto]

I did my first ever pear cider a few months ago with very little knowledge indeed.
I had enough Pears for almost 50litre of juice.

Started off with:
1. Washing & chopping all the fruit - removing pips/seeds/core but not the skin.
2. Juicing with a juicer - took a while but fun
3. Let it settle overnight
4. Added 250g of suger - loads of natural sugars already
5. Added a Youngs Cider Yeast
6. Left with air-lock for 10 days until the bubbling stopped
7. Primed bottles with sugar & racked juice into bottles
8. 7 days later started to get good drinkable pear cider that improved over the next few weeks & always with a good fizz!

No sterilizing of the juice by boiling or adding a Campden tab but just ensured FV was sterile!

Overall very little finesse but had a nice brew.

Next year when our Pear Tree is ready, we'll do much the same as before with the exception of perhaps trying finnings to clear it a little.

For Apple Cider it was suggested to me that Ascorbic Acid (aka Vitamin C but not Citric Acid) should be added during juicing to stop oxidising of the juice which would otherwise turn brown.

Sound as though what you are doing will give you a half decent Cider. :

Ascorbic Acid/Vit C can be had at some good cookery shops!

 

[tubthumper]

if you want to trust to luck you can brew cider just by crushing and pressing the apples and leave them in a tin bucket to ferment on wild yeast

but and this is a big but it wont allways work

you need to find a way to get repeatable results then refine to your taste

 

[evanvine]

You say you want to make "cloudy" cider, then you talk about filtering it :wha:
Over my last 6 makings the average OG was 1047 giving a very healthy 6.3% ABV
You have added a massive 500g of sugar boosting your OG by 40 gravity points to 1087
This will give you an ABV of around 11.6% - rocket fuel!
I wish you well, keep the aspirins handy :thumb:

 

[Firkin Idiot]

Excellent news on the pear front. sounds very similar to what we did except werent so careful with pips and cores!
Great bit of info thanks, will have to look into that.....

It might not have quite been 500g probably somewhere inbetween that and 250.....it was just a case of using what was in the sugar bowl and back of the cupboard Somewhere around 10% would be fine as we only have 1dj full .... and i'm starting to notice that headaches usually follow good nights anyway :drunk:

We thought of filtering it as it looks a bit 'lumpier' than expected but that may well settly once the fizzing stops and thought it would still be cloudy even when filtered? we'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next few days and make a judgement call.

will keep you posted - cheers folks

 

[evanvine]

That's what it's all about FI, experiment, suck it and see, best of luck :thumb:

 

[Green Pesto]

Excellent news on the pear front. sounds very similar to what we did except werent so careful with pips and cores!
Great bit of info thanks, will have to look into that.....

It might not have quite been 500g probably somewhere inbetween that and 250.....it was just a case of using what was in the sugar bowl and back of the cupboard Somewhere around 10% would be fine as we only have 1dj full .... and i'm starting to notice that headaches usually follow good nights anyway :drunk:

We thought of filtering it as it looks a bit 'lumpier' than expected but that may well settly once the fizzing stops and thought it would still be cloudy even when filtered? we'll just have to wait and see what happens over the next few days and make a judgement call.

will keep you posted - cheers folks

I wouldn't worry too much about it looking lumpy!
I worried about that the first time & ended up sifting out some of the cellular fibres floating on top & sedementing on the bottom. I would in hindsight leave well alone next time as there is a hell of a lot of flavour in that lumpy pulp!
Once fermented I'd expect that most of it would settle on the bottom much as the dead yeast does so careful racking is all that is need.

Some of that fibre makes for a great smoothy & if frozen makes good fruit ice-lollies!