First Homebrew Cider Results. Method and a few Questions

[Cuffbertt]

Hey all,

I drank my first bottle of homebrew cider last night, which turned out great. I just wanted to check my method and ask a few questions.

Ok, here’s what I did:

I used Tesco’s cheap from concentrate apple juice, at a great price of £3.40 for 4 litres. I added it to a sterilised 1gal demijohn with nutrients and yeast (both Young’s), and measured the SG at 1.046 so I did not add extra sugar.

I was attempting to make sweet carbonated cider so I left it to ferment to 1.022, at which point I syphoned it out into two 500ml bottles (only two as it was an experiment lol, the rest is fermenting fully). After about 6 hours I measured the SG of the cider in the DJ, and it had dropped to 1.016. At this point I pasteurized the two bottles in very hot water (boiled and left for a bit to get to 90 celcius, as I don’t own a suitable thermometer!), for about 15 minutes.

The next day I put the two bottles in the fridge for a couple of hours whilst I cooked tea. When they were cool I removed them and cracked one open to try. My God it was delicious! It had just the right amount of fizz and tasted a lot like apples. It was a little sweet for my liking, so next time I’ll let them ferment a little further in the DJ so make it a little drier and increase the abv (was only 4%)

The cider was obviously still fermenting in the DJ when I bottled it, so it was all mixed up. When I filled the two bottles I obviously got quite a lot of yeast in the bottles. Is there any problem with this? I was careful to try and not swish the bottle as I poured, and left a centimetre or so in the bottle afterwards.

My other question is, is it better to let the cider ferment fully to the point where there is no sugar left, backsweeten to about 1.016, bottle it, wait for the SG of an uncapped bottle to reach 1.010, at which point pasteurize (the drop of 0.006 gave a good amount of carbonation, so I’m keen to repeat that)? This would allow me to rack to another DJ and leave most of the sediment (lees, is it?) behind. I’m just not sure how many yeasties there would be left in the bottles to carbonate. I'm also not bothered about the cider having a cloudy look, in fact, I think it looks better that way :lol:

Anyway, it was a great drink and I’ll definitely be continuing and making more, so it looks like I’ve found a new hobby! :

Cheers

Carl

 

[Crastney]

Hmm, where to start… If you pasteurized, then you should have killed off the yeast, and therefore there shouldn’t have been any further fermentation, and you wouldn’t have had carbonated cider.
It was sweet because it still had unfermented sugars in it.
It was carbonated because fermentation continued, after sealing the bottles but before opening.
No problem with getting yeast in the bottles – they are in suspension so you’ll get them anyway, even if you don’t pull through any lees. They are needed for the carbonation to take place.
‘Normal’ procedure is to use a champagne/cider yeast, and let it fully ferment out, down to below 1.000 – then leave it for a week or two more for the yeast to clean up the other unwanted chemicals, then rack off the lees, and leave for several weeks to clear, then bottle (don’t worry, you’ll still have some suspended yeast at this point) – add sugar to the bottles for a small amount of extra in bottle fermentation, which conditions the brew producing sparkle – a few weeks warm to produce the CO2, then a few weeks cold for the CO2 to absorb back into the brew. All the sugar will ferment so it won’t be any sweeter, but will be dry, and a bit stronger. To backsweeten, you should add unfermentable sweetner (Canderel, Splenda, etc) to the bottle or pour it over apple juice when serving.

If left long enough it’ll clear naturally and won’t be cloudy – cloudy farmyard cider is usually because the barrel has been moved around – nothing wrong with that. Cloudy cider from supermarket is intentionally made cloudy – shake to activate. Most cider makers prefer it as clear as possible.
I’m not sure why you pasteurized – I’ve not heard others do this, and any fermentation done while the lid is still open will let CO2 out, and won’t carbonate the cider. Plus if it’s open, you risk letting infection in.

edit to add, there is a process caled Keeving, where you slow ferment, and stop the fermentation whilst still sugars left, this gives sweet cider, and is popular in France.

Just my thoughts on this.

 

[alanywiseman.]

Your method to make the cider is fine the bottling is a bit questionable. You can bottle early then pasturise (not seen anyone do it) but if you did not kill the yeast then you would get gushers. Do you still have the other bottle of sweet? iIf so you should leave it in the warm for a month or 2 to see if you did pasturise it properly. This will help for the next time (I suspect the it will not be properly pasteruised as I dont think you left it in the hot water for long enough).

The safer option as Crastney says is to ferment fully and backsweeten with a sweetener like splenda or sweeten when drinking with some sugar syrup or lemonade. You may also like to add some tannins at the start of fermentation as well to add a bit of bite to the cider :thumb: