turbo cider/raspberry.. first attempt

[Roddy]

you're only making 5 x 500ml bottles ?

Assuming you mean 10 x bottles then you'll at least double your calculation there, and if you use 6g per bottle, another 50% onto that :whistle:

I've used 6g for a while now and it works pretty well, nice and fizzy to start and keeps it's fizz for a wee bit (almost long enough to still be fizzy when I finish it hehe)

I picked up some Lowicz raspberry syrup today, on offer at tesco for �£1 per bottle reduced from �£1.29 which was a bonus, offer ends 3rd Jan 2016

It has 84g sugar per 100ml
so that is 0 .84g sugar per ml

If I use a teaspoon approx 5ml then it will add 5x 0.84 = 4.2g of sugar so it shouldn't increase the alcohol % by too much, if my math is correct it's approx one 20th of 1%

How much are folks adding to theirs?

 

[cheapbrew]

yeah and that was doing the maths without havin a drink ha ha ha!

now after a couple o glasses of pumpkin wine and I make it that adding 60ml of syrup will add approx 0.6%, so that is my second attempt at getting my brain to work and nearer to what has been said by you folks, so I'll go with that for now and top up with water on this batch, can always tweek that and whatever else in future batches to get it how she likes it.

 

[cheapbrew]

My first TC is bubbling away nicely and smellin good, and although I've brewed wine n beer since I first helped me dad as a kid I've never actually made cider, so I'm looking forward to this one more than other brews especially as my mate from devizes who grows apples and makes lots of cider is dubious about using value apple juice.

Anyway I'm gonna start hassling round pubs n clubs for some grolcsh bottles, but do any other makes of beer use swing top bottles?

 

[Roddy]

nice one 😃

I established a bit of a stock of 50odd grolschies buying them from asda when they are on offer (£1.66 ea), I think they are at that price just now

I haven't seen any other beers that use swing tops 😕

 

[Alcoholx]

tried one of these last night over some ice... tastes good and drank chilled its a nice drink , but still lacks any real fizz.. i added 330ml of syrup to about 23 litres of cider and its a bit flat to say the least or it doesent seem to hold its fizz.. it fizzed while pouring over the ice but then was a bit lifeless

mrs tried it and said it was too strong.. but at 6% i can see where shes coming from as its quite a strong flavour aswell.. i will deffo do this again.. but i would make it weaker.. and fizzier

 

[tucker1]

Aldi recently had some german wheat beers called Altenmunster as a special promotion which where about £1.70 for a 500ml swing top bottle.

I got a couple of dozen of those for re-using and I love wheat beer so the drink was very welcome.

 

[cheapbrew]

tried one of these last night over some ice... tastes good and drank chilled its a nice drink , but still lacks any real fizz.. i added 330ml of syrup to about 23 litres of cider and its a bit flat to say the least or it doesent seem to hold its fizz.. it fizzed while pouring over the ice but then was a bit lifeless

mrs tried it and said it was too strong.. but at 6% i can see where shes coming from as its quite a strong flavour aswell.. i will deffo do this again.. but i would make it weaker.. and fizzier

did you keep it warm first to carbonate and then go cold?

and what is it now a couple of weeks since bottling?

 

[Alcoholx]

did you keep it warm first to carbonate and then go cold?

and what is it now a couple of weeks since bottling?

well they have been at room temp for just under 2 weeks i think , so aim probably just being impatient to be honest.. i just expected more life from them! :)

 

[cheapbrew]

My raspberry TC has been going 6 days now and bubbles are slowing, so I took a reading and its around 1.004-1.006, I didn't have me glasses so it's only approx.


Are folks leaving them to clear after finishing, or bottling as soon as finished and clearing in the bottles?

Gotta pull me finger out and find some bottles methinks!

 

[Mrcwcb89]

I've been letting mine get to 1.000 , racking to another DJ and batch priming then bottling straight away after about a week it's carb'd and crystal clear [emoji106]

 

[Roddy]

My raspberry TC has been going 6 days now and bubbles are slowing, so I took a reading and its around 1.004-1.006, I didn't have me glasses so it's only approx.


Are folks leaving them to clear after finishing, or bottling as soon as finished and clearing in the bottles?

Gotta pull me finger out and find some bottles methinks!

If you leave it for a bit longer in the FV before bottling/or racking if you're batch priming, it will clear a little bit by itself and maybe reduce the sediment in the bottle very slightly...

saying that, I bottle as soon as it's down to 1.000, rack/prime and bottle straight away and it always goes crystal clear with just a mm or so of sediment that gets left in the bottle if you leave the last little bit of brew when pouring.

Asda have grolsch bottle on offer at the moment £1.66ea, nice bottles, bit of a chore to chew through the grolsch though :lol:

 

[cheapbrew]

Feck me I'm not rich enough to buy new bottles! and that would kinda defeat my username! I thought I was going a bit OTT buying juice for wows and TC when I usually utilisse free fruits n veg for wine making.

Bubbles are down to one every two - three mins now but I'm gonna leave it for now as I aint got any 500ml bottles, I may even resort to using wine bottles for this batch and drink before they turn into bombs.

 

[Pirate_Pete]

Feck me I'm not rich enough to buy new bottles! and that would kinda defeat my username! I thought I was going a bit OTT buying juice for wows and TC when I usually utilisse free fruits n veg for wine making.

Bubbles are down to one every two - three mins now but I'm gonna leave it for now as I aint got any 500ml bottles, I may even resort to using wine bottles for this batch and drink before they turn into bombs.

I can see a new thread appearing soon.

Dumpster Diving Adventures with Cheapbrew.

Cheapbrew takes you on fun filled trips to local supermarket car parks at midnight, diving into bins looking for wine making ingredients.:lol:

 

[Chippy_Tea]

Don't encourage him. :lol:

 

[cheapbrew]

I can see a new thread appearing soon.

Dumpster Diving Adventures with Cheapbrew.

Cheapbrew takes you on fun filled trips to local supermarket car parks at midnight, diving into bins looking for wine making ingredients.:lol:

Hahaha, maybe that was me a few years ago, but most are locked up now and the ones that aren't usually don't have anything worth grabbing, but I have had some excellent stuff out of skips in the past, I recently got the office chair I'm sitting and typing at the moment.

My missus has been known to cross the road to try and prevent me from spotting a skip further along, but my radar was too good!

Off to dive for swing tops today!

 

[cheapbrew]

I went diving for bottles this morning and after trying a few pubs n clubs I ended up raiding a few of my neighbours recycling bins and found 20 X 500ml fizzy drinks bottles, de-labelled and washed and soaking in milton steriliser and I'm going to bottle shortly :thumb:

 

[cheapbrew]

I'm gonna have to find some swing tops before I make another batch, it just doesn't have the right vibes in plastic bottles to me.
Anyway it was like flat weak cider so I batch primed with 7.5ml lowicz raspberry and half teaspooon of sugar per bottle, might be a bit too much but I wanted some fizz and they will (if drinkable) be drunk at christmas.

 

[cheapbrew]

Only just got round to trying this just now as on xmas day I cracked the purple grape, apple n mango wow and it went down so well everyone wanted more and never touched the TC.

Anyway, it was carbed up nicely with plenty of fizz, its reasonable tasting but only a hint of raspberry and the missus and daughter said it needs to be sweeter, but its cidery tasting and not too strong which is what I was aiming at mostly with this one.

So I added a capful of rasp lowicz, to a pint and it was better, so added another capful it was nice, added another capful (but by this time with all the sips it was nearer half a pint) and that was rather nice although we agreed for a fruit cider it would benefit from being slightly sweeter, so room for improvement on flavour and sweetmess, so may reluctantly have to resort to testing out sucralose.

My cider brewing mate kept saying to me that for a good fruit taste I would have to ferment with fruit syrup and not just add it at bottling. I'll be waiting for the told ya so!

 

[Alcoholx]

Only just got round to trying this just now as on xmas day I cracked the purple grape, apple n mango wow and it went down so well everyone wanted more and never touched the TC.

Anyway, it was carbed up nicely with plenty of fizz, its reasonable tasting but only a hint of raspberry and the missus and daughter said it needs to be sweeter, but its cidery tasting and not too strong which is what I was aiming at mostly with this one.

So I added a capful of rasp lowicz, to a pint and it was better, so added another capful it was nice, added another capful (but by this time with all the sips it was nearer half a pint) and that was rather nice although we agreed for a fruit cider it would benefit from being slightly sweeter, so room for improvement on flavour and sweetmess, so may reluctantly have to resort to testing out sucralose.

My cider brewing mate kept saying to me that for a good fruit taste I would have to ferment with fruit syrup and not just add it at bottling. I'll be waiting for the told ya so!

Just about sums it up tbh.. too dry for me if iam honest.. after making wine, cider and beer i think I will concentrate my efforts on all grain brewing, although I may experiment with smaller batches of cider as I think there is potential there.. :-)

 

[Pirate_Pete]

Alcoholx, have you seen the yeast that some people are using to create a sweeter cider? I can't find a link for it off hand, but I'm sure Roddy tried it so he may be able to help. Personally I like it dry and although I brew beer I like the odd cider on a hot day.

cheapbrew, I think your mate is right. I syphoned off 4 litres of so of my last cider and primed it with blackcurrant. The blackcurrant taste was negligible in
the final product. I pretty much decided then that to get a flavoured cider the syrup would have to be added at the start.

I did do an experiment a couple of weeks ago, but haven't had time to write it up. Basically using a syrup / cordial which had preservatives in. Took ages to get going. I'll see how it goes. I just had a theory which I wanted to test.