How much cider yeast to use?

[Babs]

Hi there.

I'm about to try and make a 25 litre batch of turbo cider using Roddy's popular recipe.

(Link = https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/how-to-make-turbo-cider.69059/)

In it he says you need "Yeast for 25L" and I have no idea how much that is!

I got some cider yeast from Wilko which is 5 grams. Is that enough?

Thanks!

 

[Drunkula]

Yes, it's enough.

 

[Babs]

That's great, thanks Drunkula (great name!)

Have you tried this particular recipe?

 

[Drunkula]

Have you tried this particular recipe?

Not that one, but I brewed 50 litres recently with just one packet of that yeast - it's called something like GV-13, yeah? The final gravity was about 0.998, I think, maybe a tad lower.

Because there are loads of simple sugars in turbo ciders the yeast just go crazy. Even after leaving it cold for a week, then racking it into a 50 litre keg I primed with a mix of cranberry juice and apple and raspberry juice and left it outside and even after a day it was bonkers carbonated. And that was just from the yeast left in suspension. It's a beast, that yeast.

 

[Frogbrew]

Straight apple tc is not to everyone's taste, back sweetening or adding a dash of flavoured cordial works a treat. I'm sat now having one with a dash of pink grapefruit barley over ice, can't beat it.

 

[Babs]

Thanks for the input Drunkula!

And Frogbrew, I'm intrigued by your pink grapefruit idea. Do you mean something like Robinson's Pink Grapefruit Concentrate? I note that has no sugar, so is that ok? And when does it go in?

Thanks!

 

[Babs]

Ah I see. You throw it in at drinking stage, right? Sounds nice!

 

[Babs]

Here's another question. The recipe asked for 325g of sugar.

Is that all?

Nicks90 quoted me the following formula on another thread:

20gm sugar per litre = 1% alcohol

That being the case, with 20 litres of apple juice, the % will be less than 1????

Or is there a lot of free sugars in the apple juice to compensate? Roddy's recipe says the result is 5.35% ABV.

Sorry to be thick!

 

[Drunkula]

Or is there a lot of free sugars in the apple juice to compensate?

Yeah, about 15% of it is sugar. If you look at the igredient breakdown traffic-light thingy you can find it on there.

 

[Babs]

Will be starting this Turbo Cider brew tomorrow. I hope to get an OG of 1.042. I think that will give a result around 5.5% ABV if the FG is around 1.000. Is that right? (man all this brewing means back to school with all the maths involved!)

 

[Graz]

Yeah, about 15% of it is sugar. If you look at the igredient breakdown traffic-light thingy you can find it on there.

Typical Values 100ml
Energy 199.52kJ (46.95kcal)
Fat .01g
Saturates .01g
Carbohydrate 11.70g
Sugars 9.60g
Fibre .01g
Protein .01g
Salt .01g

From the Tesco website, so a 1L carton of apple juice has 96g of sugar in it. Starting gravity on that is about 1.036, assuming finishes at 1.000 gives an ABV of around 4.7%. Add a bit of sugar if you want it stronger.

 

[Cwrw666]

From the Tesco website, so a 1L carton of apple juice has 96g of sugar in it. Starting gravity on that is about 1.036, assuming finishes at 1.000 gives an ABV of around 4.7%. Add a bit of sugar if you want it stronger.

Which apple juice is that? - I'm using the green boxes of Tescos `pure apple juice'. Gave me an OG of 1050, FG 1002 using MJ cider yeast. ABV 6.2% with nothing else added. Actually tastes like cider as well.

 

[Graz]

Which apple juice is that? - I'm using the green boxes of Tescos `pure apple juice'. Gave me an OG of 1050, FG 1002 using MJ cider yeast. ABV 6.2% with nothing else added. Actually tastes like cider as well.

Interesting now you mention it, that was for "Everyday Value". There was me thinking apple juice is apple juice but clearly it is worth paying more as the Green Box juice is 111g per L as opposed to 96g per L for value stuff. That said it still doesn't line up with your OG unless the quoted sugar content can be higher in some batches?

 

[Frogbrew]

I don't add extra sugar to my plain tc, comes out approx 5% which is fine for me. If I add a bottle of lowitc then that is about 7% for an 8ltr batch, you know when you've had a few of those.

 

[jceg316]

FWIW I find TC way more forgiving than beer, if that's where you're coming from. I've made about 4 batches of TC, and the fermenting temperatures have been high, or the pitch amount has been wrong, but the resulting cider has been great. When this has happened with beer it's developed clear off flavours.

 

[Babs]

UPDATE! Turbo Cider Experiment #1 underway!

Used Roddy's recipe (Link = https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/threads/how-to-make-turbo-cider.69059/) but took an OG reading after adding 100g sugar at a time.

Ended up adding a total of 600g of sugar as this gave a reading of 1.045. Given a hopeful FG of 1.000, I make that an ABV of around 5.9% which isn't bad at all!

Thanks for all your input, Drunkula, Frogbrew, Graz, Cwrw66 and jceg316!

Babs.

 

[Babs]

Does anyone have any advice on whether to stir the brew after pitching the yeast? This recipes doesn't specify.

Some say stir, some say don't stir.

What should I do (yeast was added 3-4 hours ago and I did not stir).

Babs.

 

[GerritT]

I'd say stir: yeast wants to start with oxygen. Give it a good swirl, worst case scenario is that things take longer. But brewthings take long anyway, it builds character I guess

 

[Babs]

Thanks GerritT. It's had a good stir now. Smells like a nice apple strudel!

 

[Cwrw666]

Interesting now you mention it, that was for "Everyday Value". There was me thinking apple juice is apple juice but clearly it is worth paying more as the Green Box juice is 111g per L as opposed to 96g per L for value stuff. That said it still doesn't line up with your OG unless the quoted sugar content can be higher in some batches?

I don't know about all that technical stuff. That was the OG I got with that batch. I didn't add any extra sugar or anything because with the previous batch I made (12L, same apple juice) I added 500g sugar and ended up with an OG of 1060 - 7.6% ABV.
I would guess the figures on the box are not at all accurate for every batch of juice.