Turbo Cider advice?

[caitlintilt]

I'm going to start brewing some turbo cider, which I'm aiming to taste a bit like West Country cider, I'm going to use normal shop-bought apple juice, cider yeast, 1/2 tsp of tanin, but I'm not committed enough to do the secondary fermentation (not this time around anyway). Anyway, what I wanted to ask was that I read honey could add extra body? I want it to end up about 8%, so would this need extra sugar? (in the form of honey) and if so how much?

 

[oldbloke]

Without the secondary malolactic fermentation it's unlikely you'll get close to a proper West Country style. You might try Gervin D instead of a cider yeast, I have the impression (no more than that) it gives a slightly funkier result. Just adding a bit of lactic acid doesn't work coz the MLF does a lot more than just convert malic to lactic.

Personally I think 8% is too much, but if you really want to:
The juice will give about 5.5% depending which you use, so you want another 2.5 or so
In a gallon, that's 1/2lb of sugar.
But honey is only about 80% fermentable sugar, so you want 10oz of honey.

I'd do 5oz and go for just under 7%

 

[Jonny69]

As oldbloke says, you need about 250-300g of sugar.

I find TC works best with 4 litres of juice and 500ml of strong black tea in a gallon demijohn. I normally add about 150g of white sugar which brings it up to 6.5%-ish.

 

[caitlintilt]

What kind of time frame would be needed if I wanted a secondary fermentation? (I like to have both long and short term brews on the go to keep a steady supply of them getting ready) and would this involve racking from one demijohn to the other? How can I tell if the secondary fermentation is complete? Or do I just leave it for a long time?

 

[anthonyUK]

What kind of time frame would be needed if I wanted a secondary fermentation? (I like to have both long and short term brews on the go to keep a steady supply of them getting ready) and would this involve racking from one demijohn to the other? How can I tell if the secondary fermentation is complete? Or do I just leave it for a long time?

My experience is that you need about a year of conditioning before this tastes anywhere vaguely approaching a decent commercial cider.
Someone has recently posted the results of using various types of shop bought apple juice which may save you some time.
I used Lidl's one which results in a very acidic Cider hence the need for a long conditioning time.

 

[graysalchemy]

If you want Malolactic fermentation to take place you need to add 1 tsp per gallon of malic acid and you need a yeast cultured from a bottle of old Rosie cider. I would also use proper tanin powder again 1 TSP per gallon as adding tea no matter how strong will be adding more volume and diluting the taste of the cider. Also I wouldn't add any sugar, sugar (or the resulting alcohol) is a flavour dilutent so you will be diluting the flavour of an already delicate drink.

With regards to time once the MLF gets going leave it as long as possible mine usually sits in a fermenter for a year before i get round to bottling and probably another 6 months in the bottle. The longer you leave it the better the flavours develop.

:thumb:

 

[Intelekt]

Silly question but where do you get a bottle of old Rosie from?

 

[Pearlfisher]

I believe Morrisons stock it.

 

[anthonyUK]

And Waitrose

 

[caitlintilt]

As I suspected that sounds like quite a shenanigan, I'm sure the results are well worth it but at the moment I only have four demijohns (I have six but two are brown so I don't like to use them unless I know I'll be racking quite quickly because I can't see what's going on) and two are already committed to long term brews (mead, and banana and prune wine). For now I think I'll stick with plain turbocider and when the banana and prune is ready I'll begin a proper cider :) Thanks for all the advice, I must buy more demijohns :L :hat:

 

[oldbloke]

In that case you almost certainly need to add about 1/2l per gallon of something other than apple juice, to fill out the flavour. Try cranberry. My missus also likes the TCs I've done with blueberry and cherry.

 

[Pearlfisher]

I must buy more demijohns :L :hat:

Buy some 5L still water 90p-£1.10p , great for bulk storage .

 

[anthonyUK]

I must buy more demijohns :L :hat:

Buy some 5L still water 90p-£1.10p , great for bulk storage . [/quote

:thumb: