First cider brew, a few questions

[vtivtec170]

Hi i started off with 18 litres of mixed apple and pear juice made from the fruit, then added about 2 kg of sugar (1.5k cane sugar + 500g brown sugar).
added 2 small sachets of wine yeast and left it in some demi-johns.

after 2-3 weeks i got a brewing bucket and put all the cider in that, it tasted around 6%.

i then added more apples that i had juiced to make it up to around 24 litres total.
then i added 4.5kg of cane sugar and a packet of 'turbo yeast' and left in the bucket.

that was about 1.5 weeks ago and now it has been in demi-johns for the last 4-5 days.

i tried a bit last night (although the bubbly things on top had slowed bubbling a lot, but still bubbled) and it seems about 15+% easily. leaves a burning sensation on the inside of your cheeks.

questions are:

how do i get rid of the cloudyness of the brew?
Can i stop it from fermenting any more as i dont fancy it much stronger?
can i filter out the dead yeast sediment with muslin or coffee filters?

thanks in advance

 

[Wendy1971]

How can you tell the % abv just by taste alone. Surely you need to use a hydrometer :wha:

 

[vtivtec170]

How can you tell the % abv just by taste alone. Surely you need to use a hydrometer :wha:

ive drunk a fair amount of different ciders in my time and its a rough guess. didnt have a hydrometer when i started it, or when adding the turbo yeast and more sugar. my dad said from the hydro that there was 7% alcohol still left to be made a few days ago but now it has about 3

 

[Marrsy86]

questions are:

how do i get rid of the cloudyness of the brew?
Can i stop it from fermenting any more as i dont fancy it much stronger?
can i filter out the dead yeast sediment with muslin or coffee filters?

thanks in advance

Pectolase and Bentonite can get rid of the haze, good old patients will help too.

Add a stabiliser to halt fermentation, Wine Stabiliser can be found in Wilkinsons.

I would recommend you siphon your brew off the dead yeast.

I wouldn't trust your taste buds to work out the ABV% either, you can taste the brew today and with the harshness of fermentation it will taste stronger than it is. Taste it again in a month it will taste better and after a longer period of time may taste like a 5% brew.

 

[graysalchemy]

I hope you have got the paracetamol ready if you have used turbo yeast.

Turbo yeast is designed for high alcohol 'drinks' to be used as a base for flavourings. Part of the process is to filter with activated carbon to remove all the nasty by products that that yeast produce :sick:

I would be very wary of drinking it.

 

[vtivtec170]

I hope you have got the paracetamol ready if you have used turbo yeast.

Turbo yeast is designed for high alcohol 'drinks' to be used as a base for flavourings. Part of the process is to filter with activated carbon to remove all the nasty by products that that yeast produce :sick:

I would be very wary of drinking it.

it will be racked in a day or 2.

what are the 'nasty' by products? can i get rid of with fine filters?
also what would be wrong with drinking it?

 

[graysalchemy]

Nasties are other chemical by products, fusal alcohols which give you head aches, off flavours and smells. As I said this form of yeast is usually used if you wish to ferment a base for spirits or do something you shouldn't do and can't be discussed on this forum. The alcohol is then mixed with activated carbon and filtered. The problem of using it in a wine or cider is that the activated charcoal will strip out anything good in the cider ie taste and aroma.

Good Luck with drinking it all I am saying is I wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.