Bare bones cider question

Khannie · 08-02-2012 9:59pm #1

So I want to test the waters with home brewing some pear cider. My plan is to start out simple (a kit like this one) and move on up to eventually crushing my own pears.

So my question is this: Is this the absolute bare minimum that's required to make some cider from one of the kits that you can buy:

A clean, food safe bucket of some sort that has a lid.
The juice and yeast that come in the kit.
Some dextrose / glucose.

I know that a hydrometer is a useful piece of kit, but realistically if you have one of the kits that I link above and some patience it's not really necessary for a first brew, right?

Is there a lot of gas going to come out? Do I need a special lid for that?

Siphon also useful, but really it's just a tube.

Am I missing anything essential?

Sky King · 08-02-2012 11:24pm

You should probably use an airlock on the lid of your bucket. The bubble ones from the home brew company are really cheap - like a couple of euro.

You'll need some way to sanitise your stuff, a decent stirring spoon and a load of bottles for bottling time. You also need to consider how you are going to bottle the cider while minimising oxygen ingress. Generally this is achieved by bottom filling with a syphon or bottling wand.

I also suggest a thermometer and a hydrometer. Not absolutely essential but very very useful. Again these are really cheap if you;re ordering all the stuff together from HBC

BeerNut · 09-02-2012 10:39am

Khannie wrote: »

Is this the absolute bare minimum that's required to make some cider from one of the kits that you can buy:

A clean, food safe bucket of some sort that has a lid.
The juice and yeast that come in the kit.
Some dextrose / glucose.

In addition to what Sky King says, you'll need something to sanitise with: thin bleach and vinegar is the cheapest and handiest (add 30ml of each to 20L of water).

Khannie wrote: »

I know that a hydrometer is a useful piece of kit, but realistically if you have one of the kits that I link above and some patience it's not really necessary for a first brew, right?

Right. Leave it fermenting for four or five weeks and it should be safe enough to bottle without checking. You won't know how strong it is, though.

Khannie wrote: »

Is there a lot of gas going to come out? Do I need a special lid for that?

No. A solid lid just sitting loosely on the bucket will be fine. I wouldn't bother with an airlock either; I don't see the point.

Khannie wrote: »

Siphon also useful, but really it's just a tube.

It's a bit more than that. A racking cane and siphon clip will make siphoning much less stressful. If you're bottling, a bottling wand will cut down on the waste and mess.

Khannie · 09-02-2012 1:17pm

Thanks a million folks. That's very helpful stuff. I'm still waiting on pay day before I fire ahead with this. I will detail the joy / anguish up here though for others looking to be as cheapo as me.

Khannie · 09-02-2012 1:32pm

Ok, just to make sure I have this right:

Essential:
Food safe bucket
Cider kit
Glucose
Sanitisation liquid (thin bleach / vinegar)
Bottles for bottling

Highly desireable:
Siphon kit
Racking cane

desireable:
Hydrometer
Thermometer

Possibly desireable:
Lactose

On the bottles: They seem expensive enough - Nearly a euro a bottle for these 1L PET ones. I'd have to check prices, but I'm guessing it's probably cheaper to go to lidl, buy a load of cheap muck (like their flavoured water or whatever) dump the contents and just use the empty bottles. Are they going to be ok? Reuseable?

Sky King · 09-02-2012 3:08pm

If all you want to do is make strong hooch on the pure cheap , just buy a few cartons of apple juice in Lidl, drink a small glass out of each carton, mush up a few raisins in hot water and toss em in with a bit of glucose. Leave to ferment with the cap barely on (to allow gas to escape) and you'll be set in 2 weeks.

8 apple juice cartons: €5 (ish)
Glucose: €1.50
Rasins: €1.50
Yeast: €2.00

8 litres of possibly up to 10% cider for €10

Disclaimer: This will probably taste minging

Khannie · 09-02-2012 3:13pm

Haha. Thanks for that. I'm not looking to just get rat faced.

I'm really enjoying pear ciders the last while and I'd like to get into brewing my own, I just want to keep entry costs to a minimum in case I don't enjoy home brewing enough to continue. If the initial brew works out well (I'd say it being tasty is the most important thing) then I'll invest in proper kit for the second run. If things progress nicely from there I plan to bulk buy some overripe pears towards the end of the summer and do things "right".

Out of interest....what are the raisins for?

Sky King · 09-02-2012 4:05pm

what are the raisins for?

Yeast Nutrient.

Or so I am told. I am no expert on this by the way - I am a relative homebrew noob myself. Beernut on the otherhand is the forum guru

I just hope you don't end up making minging cider just because you decide to cheap out on the kit and then decide home brewing is not for you purely on that basis - it's worth the small few bob to do it right I think.

If you do it right you'll find it a very rewarding and cheap hobby with delicious results.

BeerNut · 09-02-2012 4:06pm

Highly desireable:
Siphon kit
Racking cane (will be part of siphon kit)
Bottling wand

desireable:
Hydrometer
Thermometer
Trial Jar

Khannie wrote: »

On the bottles: They seem expensive enough - Nearly a euro a bottle

Never bought a bottle in my life. I always re-use. Swingtops (eg Flensburger) are handiest

If you're going to use crown-cap bottles you'll need caps and a capper as well.

BeerNut · 09-02-2012 4:07pm

Sky King wrote: »

Yeast Nutrient.

Tannins, I'm told. They add body and are useful because apple juice is very highly fermentable.

Sky King wrote: »

I just hope you don't end up making minging cider just because you decide to cheap out on the kit and then decide home brewing is not for you purely on that basis - it's worth the small few bob to do it right I think.

+1

sharingan · 10-02-2012 12:17am

In my experience an airlock is absolutely essential. You NEED to release the gas, and especially for ciders which tend to ferment vigorously.

A LOT of gas gets released.

A hydrometer is cheap and tells you when your cider is finished fermenting. Important.

You can start your kit brewing and buy it later though.

However if you want to know the alcohol content you need to have a hydrometer at the start.

BeerNut · 10-02-2012 11:30am

sharingan wrote: »

You NEED to release the gas, and especially for ciders which tend to ferment vigorously.

Leave the lid on loosely. In fact, if you don't, the gas pressure will just force the lid loose anyway. No need for an airlock.

Khannie · 13-02-2012 3:38pm

Well...I'm considering this mostly just as a just for fun / learning / trial process. I bought some apples in lidl yesterday (they were on offer for 69c per KG). Last night I juiced 1KG of them and got ~500ml of juice out of them with our juicer. Pretty tasty too.

So I looked up nutritional values. 100ml of freshly pressed apple juice has around 11g of sugar in it according to the internet. I found this tasty little conversion chart online which says that I should get around 5% alcohol out of that if I ferment it. Perfect.

So.....just as a little test run and partly for fun I think I will give it a lash fermenting 500ml of apple juice.

This raises some questions for me though:

There is no way to reasonably prevent the yeast from fermenting all of the sugar but still achieve carbonation, right? So I'm going to get a dry cider. If I then add some splenda to that, is it going to taste like a sweet cider? Or will it just taste like dry, sweet muck? I don't have much experience with dry cider, but it was all negative (though admittedly very cheap stuff).

I bought some bread yeast down in tesco's at lunch there (I needed it for bread anyway). Will that do?

BeerNut · 13-02-2012 3:52pm

I think you'll get answers to your questions after you've done the experiment.

Bread yeast isn't really suited to fermenting, but it should work in theory.

Khannie · 13-02-2012 4:06pm

Fair enough. I'll wait 'til the weekend and get some cider yeast. It'll help with ripening the apples anyway. I'll document the experiment with some pictures anyway.

tommy2bad · 15-02-2012 4:37pm

An airlock is one of the most important tings you can get, their about 1.50 and will last forever. The gas has to be vented and the important bit, air which can carry microbes has to be kept out. A baloon with a pin hole will do in a pinch but for the money get an airlock.
BTW the airlock wont release enough gas during the first ferment so a loose lid is fine, the escaping gas will keep air from getting in at that stage.

Must have;
Sanitation, (bleach)
Bucket with lid,
Airlock,
cider kit

Makes life easier;
Syphon
Bottles (reuse PET cola or glass swing tops)

nice to have;
Hydrometer
Thermometer

Clean, clean, keep clean,
patience, patience, patience.

All the equipment is reusable so over two or three kits worth its not a big cost.

BeerNut · 15-02-2012 4:56pm

tommy2bad wrote: »

air which can carry microbes has to be kept out.

Utter nonsense.

Commercial breweries have been using open fermenters for centuries. Many still do.

tommy2bad · 15-02-2012 5:04pm

BeerNut wrote: »

Utter nonsense.

Commercial breweries have been using open fermenters for centuries. Many still do.

Yep and when I brew in that quantity I wont need an airlock either the carbon layer will work fine, but for a couple of quid better safe than sorry.
Having said that, I do have a particular problem with ciders as the wild yeast round me (my own orchard) produces a foul smelling and 'off' tasting brew. So it might be just me. YMMV as they say.

BeerNut · 15-02-2012 5:05pm

My mileage has been chugging along fine with no airlock and no infections for years.

Why would the CO2 layer be any less effective on a smaller batch? It's all proportional, isn't it?

leggit · 15-02-2012 5:08pm

BeerNut wrote: »

Utter nonsense.

Commercial breweries have been using open fermenters for centuries. Many still do.

Agreed, never used an airlock, just a cover loosely on and I've never had an issue with a brew.

tommy2bad · 15-02-2012 5:13pm

I'v awalys sterilized the apple juice and used an airlock since anytime I'v tried a 'natural' fermentation it came out horible ( get you drunk all right and well hungover).
I was advised to kill all natural yeast as they are small area specific and mine tended towards vinegar.
I'v even had success with other peoples apple juice if I use an airlock.

Khannie · 15-02-2012 5:14pm

Why do people use airlocks at all then? Just to let you know when fermentation is complete?

edit: I see Tommy's last post there. Fair enough.

BeerNut · 15-02-2012 5:52pm

Khannie wrote: »

Just to let you know when fermentation is complete?

To tell you when fermentation has started. They don't tell you when it's complete, only your hydrometer knows that (though if you leave the stuff long enough you can take it as read).

Khannie · 15-02-2012 6:02pm

I would have thought fermentation starts more or less as soon as the yeast hits the delicious, delicious sugar? I thought that when an airlock stopped bubbling you could take it that fermentation was finished / all the sugar was gone.

BeerNut · 15-02-2012 9:44pm

Khannie wrote: »

I would have thought fermentation starts more or less as soon as the yeast hits the delicious, delicious sugar?

No, there's a lag time. It can be up to three or four scary, scary days. If you've made a mistake somewhere it might not kick off at all :eek:

Khannie wrote: »

I thought that when an airlock stopped bubbling you could take it that fermentation was finished / all the sugar was gone.

People have done that and got bottle bombs as a result. If the gas pressure forces the lid ajar or the bung isn't 100% tight in its hole, the airlock will stop bubbling.

Khannie · 16-02-2012 3:28pm

Cider yeast arrived so the experimentation begins tonight. I have the fresh apples which I will juice and some cloudy apple juice which I picked up from Aldi today. Think I'll add some heavily stewed tea to one or both. Any reading I've done seems to indicate that it helps. 100ml added to the cloudy apple juice without any sugar should see it ferment out to around 4.5% ABV which seems fine. I'll invest in a proper starter kit and a pear cider kit in the next week or so I think.

BeerNut · 16-02-2012 4:09pm

Juice will give you a very different drink from what kits produce, I'd imagine.

Khannie · 16-02-2012 5:40pm

Yeah, I'd imagine so. I actually don't expect much from the kits other than convenience and cheapness to be honest. To me real juice from real fruit = real cider. I'm not sure if it will be better than what I can buy in a supermarket, but intuition tells me it will be. I think I'll need to couple that with some experience though. I'm not a huge apple cider fan, but this is all learning. At 69c a Kilo for apples I thought it was worth a lash.

My own end goal is to see if I can brew a tasty perry from pears and if so to get enough pears at the end of the summer when they're cheapest to produce a large batch. Possibly enough to cover me for a year if I become proficient enough and like it enough.

Otherwise I suppose I'll stick to the kits if they work out well, or worst case I'm back to buying from the supermarket and I've had some fun and learned a bit.

BeerNut · 16-02-2012 5:57pm

As I understand it, you specifically need perry pears for perry.

Khannie · 16-02-2012 6:07pm

Balls.

I suppose I'll find out what happens when you make it with normal pears then.

Sky King · 16-02-2012 8:58pm

Drink it anyway - don't let it go to waste! The only think that should get wasted with home brewing is you.

Here's my impromptu hybrid spicey cider recipe which i threw together from looking up cider ingredients online and in forums like this one and just adding ingredients that i like!

Strong honey and lemon spiced cider - Estimated ABV 9.5 to 9.9%

makes 8L

boil a bag of rasisins (450g) in a cup of apple juice with the juice of a squeezed lemon and about 300g of honey

meanwhile put two mugs of boiling water in a teapot and add 3 teabags and 6 mulled spice bags and boil the ****e out of it for about 10 mins then turf that liquid into the pot with the honey and raisins in it

when the raisins are all mushy and stuff, pour that into the fermenter and fill up with apple juice about half way

put about a pint of apple juice back in the boiling pot and heat it up, then add 450kg of glucose and 15 splenda tablets and stir until homonogeous, then add this to the fermentr and fill up about 4/5 of the way, leaving plenty of headspace for foam

take a grav reading (this was about 10075)

one month in fermenter
one month in bottles, primed

This could quite feasibly taste like man ass so don't go off making it until i get back to you with a verdict. It's fermenting as I type.... LIVE!

Bare bones cider question

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