Newbie playing with cider brews

[teahead]

Hi there!

Those lovely glass flagons that store Weston's Cloudy cider have inspired me to start brewing my own. Atm I'm using pressed juice in a 5l plastic tank, lalvin EC-1118 champagne yeast, 250g or so granulated sugar and about 200ml STRONG tea (for tannin), then back-sweetening by about 20% when it goes in the jug.

The results produce a drinkable drink, with a bit of variation on flavour depending on which juice I start with, but the truth is it's not exactly a beguiling brew. When I've collected enough flagons I can see myself brewing on a larger scale, if I can do something to make the flavour more interesting. How would I do that? Seems juice isn't necessarily the answer, nor the yeast (my first go was with a cider yeast and that was less good than any of the champers products. I'm also a little bothered by the cost of apple juice - nothing like the kind of value in home brewing beer :nah: But then I'm not so keen on beer...

Another minor question - at the moment I leave the yeast residue at the bottom when I rack off. All of the bigger fermenters seem to have a tap near the bottom. Does that adequately keep the yeast out of what goes for bottling?

Any help (and patience with a rookie's silly questions) appreciated.

 

[Wendy1971]

Hi and welcome to a great forum :thumb:

 

[teahead]

Hi and welcome to a great forum :thumb:

Thanks Wendy. Looks like I double posted while you were checking my original was up to scratch. Could you delete the pointless one?

 

[eggman]

Welcome to the forum :

 

[Vossy1]

Welcome to the forum :thumb:

Another minor question - at the moment I leave the yeast residue at the bottom when I rack off. All of the bigger fermenters seem to have a tap near the bottom. Does that adequately keep the yeast out of what goes for bottling?

Yep, the yeast compacts down and stays put providing the tap is high enough of the bottom. You can tip the fv to get the last dregs out too, the yeast should still stay put right to near the end.
Can't answer your other question though, sorry, though I know some folk prime with apple juice.

 

[teahead]

Can't answer your other question though, sorry, though I know some folk prime with apple juice.

Maybe if I made more at a time it'd have time to sit and mature...

But my tastebuds are pretty good and it's pretty obvious all the sugar's getting chewed up and pumped back out as alcohol and gas... I'm finding it hard to believe that the huge variety of flavours in 'proper' cider just come down to dousing the finished product with a bit of apple juice.

Thanks for the tip on using a big fermenter. Walking clueless into brewing seems a pretty sure fire way of having your pockets emptied before you've figured out what you're doing.

e2a done some reading, all the advice is already there on flavour - apologies for just rushing in past the wisdom!

 

[joe1002]

Welcome to the forum :

 

[bobsbeer]

Welcome. : Don't forget that apple juice from cartons is different to the apples used for cider making. To get the 'real' thing you will need to use cider apples and crush your own. I don't usually make cider and my efforts with Turbo cider were not good, so never tried it again. Good luck though.

 

[Capone]

Hello Teahead,

Welcome to the forums,

I would read through the cider and wine part of the forums it will have all the information you are looking for,

I would personally get 2 x 23 ltr carboys and a syphon to help rack without disturbing the sediment.

Find your local home brew shop they will help you.

Hope that helps :thumb:

 

[graysalchemy]

If you want a good west country cider from carton apple juice you ate going to have to add malic acid, and use a year cultured from Weston's old rosie (the yeast in the cloudy is dead as it wad pasteurised). You need to mature in bulk for 2_3 months to allow malolactic fermentation to take place. Bacteria in the old Rosie turn the malic acid to lactic and also produce the farmyard twang associated with good cider. Its not hard to do but it does need patience. Give the forum a search a lot has been written about mlf and I did do a thread about culturing old Rosie yeast in the cider how to section.
:thumb:

 

[teahead]

Thanks Grey - yep I came across mlf and old rosie while nosing around here. This all needs some pondering. I like doing the artisan thing but supermarket juice seems a sad cheat. I appreciate there's also concentrate, and powdered tannin instead of tea. Recovering yeast from Old Rosie feels like another step in the wrong direction if I'm producing a cider that's 'mine'. Beyond all this my local Asda pumps out 2l. of Weston's Cloudy for £4.09.

I'm probably just getting ahead of myself and should stick with the turbo, keep it on the yeast for longer (or even siphon it into empty Weston demijohns with the yeast then rack it again after 3 months into bottles), back-sweeten and look forward to moving out of town when I'll buy an apple press? The turbo's obviously got potential as handy backup booze stock but the truth is I'm not really in a position to make the kind of cider I'm actually after atm.

 

[graysalchemy]

Old rosie yeast i in actual fact a champagne yeast but it is the lactoibacillus that are the important part. You could buy lactobacillus culture Wyeast make one, or you could go au natural and hope for the best.

Unless you have a supply of cider apples you are not going to make a west country artisan cider with out the addition of tannin powder and malic acid, so really what is the harm in using old rosie yeast just because supermarkets sell it. If you just make bog standard turbo you will be disapointed and you may as well go and buy a bottle of strongbow :sick:

 

[calumscott]

Thanks Grey - yep I came across mlf and old rosie while nosing around here. This all needs some pondering. I like doing the artisan thing but supermarket juice seems a sad cheat.

Nah, it's no different to us buying malt or malt extract to brew our beer. Unless you are growing cider apples you have very few other options. Concentrate is, well, the same stuff just with less water...

I appreciate there's also concentrate, and powdered tannin instead of tea. Recovering yeast from Old Rosie feels like another step in the wrong direction if I'm producing a cider that's 'mine'. Beyond all this my local Asda pumps out 2l. of Weston's Cloudy for £4.09.

And therein lies the paradox of brewing. If you want it cheap, go shopping, if you want it good go shopping and spend more. If you want it really good with the smug satisfaction of your mates going, "Really?? You made this??" then brew it yourself. Brewing good cider or beer doesn't carry massive cost savings (although it can easily become a self-funding hobby or better).

Remember a few easy rules with cider and you'll make really good stuff:

1) Apple juice for drinking isn't the same as apple juice for cider. You need to monkey around with the Malic Acid and Tannin content. A tsp each per gallon is about right.
2) The flavours in a "proper" cider are only partly down to the juice and rarely down to the yeast. It's the bacteria that give you those artisanal "farmy" notes. Lactobacillus (various species) Oenococcus (a couple of species) and some others perform Malolactic Fermentation but I guess each will throw different by products - your flavour notes.
3) MLF takes time, time and more time. Think about how traditional cider is made - apples pressed late September or early October and fermented then kept in massive tuns until late Spring or early Summer when it is deemed ready for bottling and drinking. You are best to brew in decent quantities (I've got a 5 gallon batch on the go at the moment for next summer), age in bulk (I'll rack after a few weeks to a clean FV and tuck it away somewhere coolish) and enjoy in cider weather the following year!

Puzzled as to why culturing someone else's yeast would be a step in the wrong direction though??? Where else are you going to get it from? You could try for a spontaneous ferment like they used to do in the olden days (and I think some hobbyists and small scale producers still do) but when cost comes into it, well, you need control over your fermentation - I'd hate to put in the effort to press a mountain of apples and have it spoil through some unwanted microbes on the apple skins or equipment.

So that leaves culturing from a product that you know produces good cider (easier said than done - there aren't many bottle conditioned ones available to harvest from), trying to coax a cider farm to give you some of theirs or buying a commercially grown and packaged culture (well two actually, you need yeast and a lactic acid bacterium).

Culturing seems more "hands on" and "artisan" than buying to me...

I'm probably just getting ahead of myself and should stick with the turbo, keep it on the yeast for longer (or even siphon it into empty Weston demijohns with the yeast then rack it again after 3 months into bottles), back-sweeten and look forward to moving out of town when I'll buy an apple press? The turbo's obviously got potential as handy backup booze stock but the truth is I'm not really in a position to make the kind of cider I'm actually after atm.

Don't keep it on the yeast too long, certainly no more than a month. If you use concept of changing the chemistry of the juice to match cider apples and get MLF going, you should end up with a cider that is dry, but not sharp and is absolutely bursting with flavours on top of the appley base. Although dry, you shouldn't have to backsweeten.

On pressing apples - you have to know what your apples are, each variety brings different chemistry to the party, so if you have a tree full of desert apples you'll still have to monkey around with the Malic Acid and Tannin levels. Cider producers do this by blending juices from different varieties of cider apple but unless you have two or three trees you're not going to be able to do this. FWIW I've got designs on my sister-in-law's Bramley tree for next year's batch but even those sour beasts will need MORE malic acid to get MLF going properly!

I've got a massive database of apple chemistry (which I can't publish but am happy to give specific information from) so if you can get your hands on apples and know the variety let me know then you could easily bring the chemistry in line for cider.

Turbo cider can be fantastic, it can also be no better than a supermarket can. Same juice but different process can make the difference between commercial-like appley pop and proper west country cider farm cider.

 

[teahead]

Thanks for the really really helpful, comprehensive post! :thumb:

So many things to hold me back...
For a start somewhere coolish - my place is small and the best spot would be under the stairs (which is subject to the heating around the place). I could haul things outside after the frosts but it seems to me that temperature fluctuation outside would be far from ideal.

OK yep of course I could nip the yeast from old rosie. I guess in my dreams/future I'd nudge a big producer for some of theirs but I'm pretty much embedded in an edge-of-(large)town - situation at least 200 miles from one of those.

I'm wondering how far I could get with added powdered tannin and malic acid in my turbo though...

 

[graysalchemy]

I'm wondering how far I could get with added powdered tannin and malic acid in my turbo though...

Well if you add 1 tsp of each per gallon let it ferment and then let Malolactic fermentation to take place and leave it for 6+ months you will have something which if it was served at a cider festival someone would probably not be able to tell that it wasn't made from cider apples. But you need time and allow malolactic fermentation to take place which as we have said really means infecting it with Lactobacillus either from a shop bought culture or old rosie yeast.

 

[calumscott]

Thanks for the really really helpful, comprehensive post! :thumb:

So many things to hold me back...
For a start somewhere coolish - my place is small and the best spot would be under the stairs (which is subject to the heating around the place). I could haul things outside after the frosts but it seems to me that temperature fluctuation outside would be far from ideal.

OK yep of course I could nip the yeast from old rosie. I guess in my dreams/future I'd nudge a big producer for some of theirs but I'm pretty much embedded in an edge-of-(large)town - situation at least 200 miles from one of those.

I'm wondering how far I could get with added powdered tannin and malic acid in my turbo though...

These are just the problems we as home brewers of any beverage face! To let them hold you back is silly.

For example I have just started brewing all grain beer, I used to brew kits - all I was doing was fermenting a commercially prepared wort concentrate and tweaking things a little with additional hops or other extras to make a beer that I preferred. Now brewing from grain, well I still buy commercially prepared malt - I could probably malt my own grain, there are a few on here who do but I don't see the point - it's a lot of work when it's readily available and gets superb results (that's not to say that the geek in me doesn't want to give it a go sometime!!)

Wine too, I've got a kit on the go to produce some Sauvignon Blanc, all pre prepared and packaged, follow the instructions, drink the wine. I've also got a WOW on the go, just juice and sugar and yeast and stuff, they tell me it'll be nice but is it "wine"? I've got a vine, I have no idea what variety, I'm going to try to make wine from it next year it might be rubbish, I might have to monkey around with the juice to get something that's good...

And so it is with cider - I can't (well, can't be bothered trying, frankly) source cider apples. The furthest I'm likely to go is a Bramley tree in my sister-in-law's back garden, but even at the fresh apple level they're not cider apples so additional dried wine tannin and powdered malic acid is the ONLY way to put the chemistry of the juice in the right place for the right microbial processes to happen.

Seriously, if you think that messing with the chemistry of readily available juice is going to hold you back, the only option open to you is to invest in cider apple trees.

Messing with what we can get our hands on to produce great beverages ourselves is what this hobby is all about. Take ScottM for example, we differ quite a bit in terms of our taste buds, but he is rapidly becoming the forum "will it brew" man - he experiments, tries stuff, tinkers with things and ferments pretty much anything (including Barr's Irn Bru - legend!) in pursuit of a good, interesting beverage. And that's the point, we don't have maltings, we don't have orchards, we don't have vineyards... we brew what we can get.