Loads of apples, where next?? First time home-brew cider?

[Nick_593]

Hello everyone,

I have a load of cider apples dropping from a few trees in the garden and want to make some cider for the first time.

First question, whats the best way to crush the apples and get the juice? Not looking to spend a whole lot, but want to invest in something that will do a good job (any recommended welcome!).

Second question: Could someone recommend a good vale cider press?

Third question: what would be the best method to follow to make the cider, and best yeast to use?


Any help here would be hugely appreciated!!. First time doing this and would love to get it right first time.

Thanks a lot!

Nick

 

[Cononthebarber]

Hi I'm about to venture down the very same road as you...most people use a food processor to mash up the apples and then a press to squeeze the juice out of the pulp. I have THIS press but got it off gumtree for a bargain. I don't have a food processor but I've been told that a strong stick with some screws screwed into the end works well as a masher to pulp the apples...

I plan to mash up my apples, run them through the press and then collect the juice into demijohns. Add a crushed campden tablet to each full DJ and then add dried youngs cider yeast.

I have also bought a acidity test kit from HERE so that I can adjust the acidity to get it to the right levels...I think you should aim for an acidity level of 5-6 ppt...or so I have read :)

 

[Redcar]

Hi Nick,

I've just completed my first season's cider pressing too so here's what I've learned.

How much is a lot? We scratted ours using a bucket and a pole with a meat tenderiser on the end. It was hard work but good enough for our 1st try:

We had 2 goes making a press, the 2nd was much more successful. Basically it was a food grade storage bin you can buy from Wilcos with a hole near the bottom.

For yeast you can use champagne yeast or Sa-04, but the more experienced posters will give you better info.

As it is take a look at the cider recipes and how-to's on the forum and you'll end up with something like this

We have 4 gallons on the go at the moment.

Happy pressing! :)

 

[Dave1970]

You can see how I do it here

Crushing the apples is called Scratting so have a look on Ebay for Scratter to see what's out there. The shredder does a decent job, mine has a spinning disc with 2 sharp blades - exactly the same as a proper electric scratter like a Vigo Fruit Shark, the difference is the proper one is in stainless and will take whole apples. The shredder is obviously designed to take sticks etc. so the apples have to be chopped adding to the amount of work. I'm looking at making one from a waste disposal unit for next year, the idea being that it would grind a bit finer and I'd get more juice out. I'm also thinking that put onto a stand of some sort it could feed directly into the press. In your situation I'd be on Ebay looking for a cheap shredder or waste disposal locally.

The press you can see is a 12 litre screw press. From the apples I had this time I was getting about a gallon of juice from each pressing, wouldn't be surprised if your proper cider apples gave more, I ended up with 15 gallons of juice so had to fill, press and empty 15 times. This is a bit of a pain, I'd like to go for a bigger press but they're expensive unless you home build one with a car jack...I expect I will do this at some point. I definitely wouldn't go any smaller than the 12 litre, but I guess if you were just doing a couple of DJ's worth a smaller one would be OK.

Lots of discussions about yeast - you can not use any and let the wild yeasts on the apples do the job, one lot of mine is doing this and it's going great at the moment :pray: . Alternatively you can kill off the wild yeasts by adding one crushed campden tablet per gallon and then add your choice of yeast. Possibles include bought cider yeast, champagne yeast, yeast cultured from a live cider (like Old Rosie) or some ale yeasts (I'm trying s-04 in one batch).

 

[danb]

I built a bigger press for this year which works a lot better than the smaller version last year. also I bought a waste disposal from screwfix which is brilliant. gets the pulp very fine and when loading the press a lot of juice just flows out before any pressure is put on. we did 80kg a few weeks back without any trouble at all and a lot easier than using a food processor like the year before.

 

[richy.d]

Hi guys ive recently brought a homebrew kit and I decided on cider I used 2/3 fresh apples and 1/3 apple kuice been about 5 days now and a thick crust/skin has formed on top is this normal as its my first atempt im unsure many thanks Rich