Smelly cider (from a noob)

[cerby]

Hi, i am trying to brew my own cider but have been having some problems and wondered if anyone could help me out.

First off i tried some supermarket apple juice and some sugar to see what would happen. I sterilised everything place the sugar, apple juice and wine yeast (could only get hold of wine yeast) into a demijohn and left it till the air lock stopped bubbling. After this i opened it and it had a really sour smell, like if you smelt it it made your nose hurt, (maybe vinagery smell but not like house hold vinger).

I bottled it and it does taste abit better now but not drinkable.

Since then i bought a 40 pint magnum cider kit. I followed the instructions and have been brewing it in a youngs barrel (the one with the whole in the top for an air lock). It says fermentation should take 7-8 days, but the cider has been sat at about 15 degrees celius and has only just stopped bubbling after almost 4 weeks. I have just opened it ready to bottle and i get hit with the same smell. I closed it back up and not sure what to do next.

Is this smell normal? Does anyone know what the smell is and why it is caused? What should I do with the kit i have now?

Thankyou for any help, I want to be able to make my own alchol but it all seems to have gone wrong so far,

cerby

 

[tubby_shaw]

Hi cerby and welcome to the forum :thumb:

The smell that you get is probably just Carbon dioxide hitting your nose
As for your first try at cider, in my opinion adding sugar to the apple juice will have thinned out the flavour and using wine yeast will have taken the gravity so low as to leave no residual sweetness
You should be able to make it drinkable by adding a good slug of apple juice to your glass before topping up with the cider :
As for your kit 15C is a little on the low side and the fermentation would have finished sooner (on time) if it was held at 20C :thumb:
Don't do anything drastic, just bottle or keg as usual and let it mature for a few weeks :drink:

 

[falafael]

have doen a few cider kits myself, and had great results..warmth is they key..along with good sanitation, try to keep it around 22c if you can, in this weather it shouldn't be to bad, failing that, you caould buy a heat belt for tthe barrel!
Dont give up mate, you'll get there in the end. :thumb:

 

[cerby]

hey, thanks for your replies. Glad to know the smell is normal. I have no where in the house which is particularly warm, with have a combi boiler so thats no help, so its been kept at room temperature, which except for this last week has been low. I am going to invest in a heater belt or a tray next time i do a kit.

I am going to bottle it later today and will let you know how it turns out in a months time,

thanks again for your advice

 

[So-Kal]

I'm having similar problems myself - so I'm completely open to suugestions on where I went wrong :

I used 20 litres of apple juice (from concentrate) - starting with 5 litres, mixing in the cider yeast (and nutrient) a small amount (600g) of sugar, and then adding in 5 litres of apple juice a day for the next 3 days.

I also added 3 chopped up cooking apples (minus the core - all properly cleaned first) and added those - maybe that wasn't such a great idea???

Anyway, the intial gravity was 1070, so I thought I was in for a decent, sweetish cider - but it's already fermented down to 1002 (after 8 days) and is still very slowly bubbling (maybe a bubble every 10-20 mins or so)

It smells like vinegar, and tastes about the same (small sample tasted off the hydrometer after testing the gravity - not ideal, but I just 'had' to see what it was like)

My main concern is some small white spots that have formed on the surface - only a handful, but for all the world, they look like mould to me!!

Anyway - over to the knowledge base to see what to do next (although I guess - 'start again' is the likely answer.......)

:)

 

[tubby_shaw]

Unless you arrest fermentation by some method, or are able to perform KEEVING then apple juice will ferment to dryness, adding yeast nutrient will only aid the yeast to remove every last speck of sugar
Adding the cooking apples shouldn't have caused any problems if they were sulphited prior to use :thumb:
In my opinion adding sugar to TC only results in thinning the flavour and body
As to the taste very young, very dry TC can taste vinegary :sick: so it may be worth waiting to see how it develops :hmm:
As for the mould on the surface, skim it off with a sanitised implement and keep your fingers crossed :pray:

 

[So-Kal]

Cheers Tubby - OK, the apples were basically just given a dose of boiling water before being chopped up - I guess that's over enthusiasm and not really knowing much! Same goes for the nutrient - I just thought I was being clever, I guess!!

I might just leave it another week or so and see what happens.

Do you think adding MORE apple juice and then cold storing (to prevent more fermentation) might be an answer to save this batch, or am I just better leaving it to clear, bottling it and then adding 'something' to sweeten it as I drink it??

Oh - something else that I might have done wrong, is that (last night) I added beer finings to try and clear it - would that have caused issues???

 

[tubby_shaw]

If your apples were scrubbed and then scalded it shouldn't have caused and issue.
Don't worry too much about the yeast nutrient we all live and learn :thumb:
The beer finings wont cause any problems although they wont clear your TC as adding the chopped up cookers will have added pectin to the brew which will cause a haze.
If you can chill the whole batch down to 2C then this will halt the yeast activity and most of it will drop out of solution :) you could then rack the cider off of the sediment and add sodium metabisulphate and potassium sorbate, which if there are only low levels of yeast left kill it. You could then add more apple juice to sweeten it but unless you have a method of force carbonation you will have to drink still cider :drink:
I will also have some second generation WLP775 cider yeast available shortly, which with the addition of nothing more than apple juice creates a great cider :party:
If anybody wants some pm me and I'll sort some out :thumb:

 

[So-Kal]

Cheers again for the help - and if I may, I'll take some of that yeast!! PM on it's way :)

 

[prolix]

I don't want to be the voice of doom but it sounds like aceto bacteria by smell, taste and sight. If it smells like vinegar, tastes like vinegar and has white scum on the top it is aceto bacteria which is a real pity because one of the strains actually makes beer taste cidery, that one would have been good.

Hope it isn't but you will need to clean everything well and bleach the planet to kill this bug if it is. The bane of brewers (not lambic mind) lives I have had to sacrifice 4 batches so far due to aceto at one time or another. clean and sanitise, clean and sanitise, clean and sanitise

 

[So-Kal]

OK - after a really close examination, my worst fears are unfounded! What I thought were white spots of ? contamination are nothing more than little pockets of VERY fine bubbles!!

I used a sterile dressing to start mopping up the surface, and the fact that it was just bubbles became very eveident, very quickly!

Also - the smell isn't anywhere near as evident now the bucket has been standing without any real fermentation going on!

So - drama over on that front (I hope)...... :

Whilst I had the lid off, I scooped out a tiny sample too, just to see - and even the vinegary taste has subsided.

It might just be me being overly critical, testing it too soon, or just having a completely **** sense of taste/smell, but, in all honesty, it's not that bad and I reckon it's got a chance if I can leave it to settle and clear for another couple of weeks or so!!

So - thanks for all the advice - I promise one day I'll 'get it' so won't ask stupid questions!!

:party:

 

[prolix]

Glad to hear it at least next time you will be aware of this :party: :

 

[cerby]

I finally got around to bottleling mine. I took a hydrometer reading which was less than 1000 (started at 1040). It still smelt but not as bad as when i first posted so im guessing the smell is the co2 as tubby_shaw suggested. I tasted it and it did have a stange taste to it which was the same nasty taste as my first batch, but not as strong (it is drinkable).

I have bottled it with some added sugar to make it sparking cider. Can anyone explain to me about maturing? why do we need to leave it to mature and what happens during the maturing process?

Thank you for any help

Cerby