Vimto Cider, or not?

[Bezza]

Hi All,

My bro's had a go at making a Vimto cider,

Started about 10 days ago, boiled up the vimto, added sugar, apple juice, water and pitched the yeast.

He had a starting gravity of around 1080 and after ten days its around 1076.. so either he took the OG wrongly or its going extremely slowly.

Any ideas? Could it be that the vimto wasn't boiled enough, or yeast pitched too soon (too hot)?

If so, how can we fix it?

Any help or suggestions would be great! :)

 

[graysalchemy]

Thats not cider its wine. With all that sugar you will have a more wine like feel than cider.

How long did you boil it for? What yeast did you use and did you use any yeast nutrient. Really for that amount of sugar you need a wine yeast or better still Champagne yeast.

It is obviously fermenting but very slowly I would perhaps first try adding yeast nutrient and giving it a rouse and see if that helps. Failing that boil it again add a wine or champagne yeast and some nutrient and see if that gets it going.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

One of the ingredients in Vimto is Potassium Sorbate, this is the same stuff we use as wine stabiliser, some wine makers say boiling gets rid of it, i have tried a Ribena wine and i disagree with this theory, it may get rid of some but defiantly not all of it, it took many weeks to get to 1020 and when i searched i found out many people have tried this and it rarely gets to what you would consider finished, i poured mine down the sink.

 

[graysalchemy]

One of the ingredients in Vimto is Potassium Sorbate which will kill the yeast or enough of it to make it a very slow fermentation that will more than likely finish early.

Which is why it needs to be boiled, but if an inappropriate yeast has been used then you will have the same result.

 

[Bezza]

He hasn't mentioned using any nutrient but I know it was a wine yeast which he used. This might be a stupid question but will wine yeast nutrient be OK to use with champagne yeast?

If I'm honest, I highly doubt he boiled it off enough (he's a tad impatient) so i'll suggest he re-boils and try again with a champagne yeast

 

[graysalchemy]

:thumb: :thumb:

I would add nutrient as well.

 

[Bezza]

OK, I'll make sure he does! Although it will mean even more patience as we don't have a brewing shop near us and I don't think our closest Wilko stocks nutrient.

Ta for the help, good to know there's a chance to save it!!!

 

[Chippy_Tea]

This is a great tip from moley taken from the thread below.

If you want a Ribena wine which actually tastes much of Ribena, whether blackcurrent or strawberry, make a Basic White to the Wurzel's Orange method but using apple juice in place of the orange, and then back-sweeten with the Ribena.

"Hi, we have a problem with our ribena wine" - viewtopic.php?f=40&t=17991&view=previous

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