Brewing light cider

Khannie

So I'd like to home brew some perry / pear cider / whatever you want to call it but calories are an issue for me. Basically what I'm trying to create is bulmers light except the home brew pear version.

Is this possible? How do they brew that light stuff?

edit: I'm not a purist or whatever. If I have to add artificial sweetener to it I'm ok with that. I'm guessing they do that with bulmers light anyway.

MindHelp

Bulmers makes its cider with artificial carbonation. i.e the put bubbles in the wash and bottle artificially. This means they can add sugar or sweeteners to the finished product without effecting the carbonation rate. If you are doing this at home you would be better of using a soda stream (remember this from the 80's, oh the memories) Since home carbonation is mostly done with using yeast it is hard to add more sugar to sweeten the cider as the yeast will just ferment it into alcohol and CO2 in the bottle and the bottle will burst. This might work but I have never done it. Try using artificial sweeter before bottle with the primer sugar 4g per 500ml spelenda or some sort crush it up and make sure it is fully dissolved before adding the primer sugar. I find home made cider very bitter compared to Bulmers, try using as many types of apples/ pears as possible to add depth.

Khannie

You lost me at the start to be honest. I guess I have more reading to do on the whole subject of home brewing, though I am open to the possibility of soda-streaming for sure. I have very fond memories of the ol' soda stream all right.

So is cider naturally fizzy? Or does the CO2 just bubble off normally?

Wow....they're still going!

http://www.sodastream.co.uk/gbretail/Default.aspx

Degsy

Khannie wrote: »

You lost me at the start to be honest. I guess I have more reading to do on the whole subject of home brewing, though I am open to the possibility of soda-streaming for sure. I have very fond memories of the ol' soda stream all right.

So is cider naturally fizzy? Or does the CO2 just bubble off normally?

Wow....they're still going!

http://www.sodastream.co.uk/gbretail/Default.aspx

You can get Cider kits from the homebrew suppliers..its much,much easier than attempting to make it from apples.
The thing is they requier a certain amount of sugar to turn into alcohol..if you do this correctly ie leave it to brew properly,most of the sugar will convert and there shouldnt be that much left to fatten you
Home brew cider obvioulsy wont taste as sweet as bulmers but you have the added pleasure of knowing you made it yourself.

MindHelp

Olden time cider was not fizzy, it was fermented apple juice that's all it was. they did not even use an air lock just a rag over the top of the barrel. Now a days just before bottling beer and cider companies pump with fizz into the beer and then capped. to keep the fizz in place. If we want to reproduce the fizz most home brew people use the yeast that is lift suspended in the beer/ cider just before we bottle. How this is done is we add 4g of sugar per 500ml of wash(beer,cider). then bottle the it. the yeast in the beer in the bottle converts the 4g of sugar into CO2 and (.5% alcohol not work talking about this bit. ) over a 2 week period. after that the yeast falls to the bottom of the glass. then when we open the bottle the co2 is release and the fizz is our to taste. So if you add to much sugar to make your beer sweet then the yeast will use it all and make too much CO2 and burst the bottle. so you could try the artificial sweeter

MindHelp

Degsy wrote: »

You can get Cider kits from the homebrew

Hi Degsy,
Khannie is looking for a pear cider
this might be good Khannie http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Magnum_Pear_Cider_kit.html

Degsy

MindHelp wrote: »

Olden time cider was not fizzy, it was fermented apple juice that's all it was. they did not even use an air lock just a rag over the top of the barrel. Now a days just before bottling beer and cider companies pump with fizz into the beer and then capped. to keep the fizz in place. If we want to reproduce the fizz most home brew people use the yeast that is lift suspended in the beer/ cider just before we bottle. How this is done is we add 4g of sugar per 500ml of wash(beer,cider). then bottle the it. the yeast in the beer in the bottle converts the 4g of sugar into CO2 and (.5% alcohol not work talking about this bit. ) over a 2 week period. after that the yeast falls to the bottom of the glass. then when we open the bottle the co2 is release and the fizz is our to taste. So if you add to much sugar to make your beer sweet then the yeast will use it all and make too much CO2 and burst the bottle. so you could try the artificial sweeter

Khannie

That's cool! Thanks mindhelp. Much appreciated.

thelynchfella

when bottling use sugar as stated above to get your fizz....but your perry will most probably be very dry, not sweet like bulmers as all the sugar will have fermented. you can also use splenda as well as the sugar. Splenda is not fermentable so using splenda will make it sweeter.

rubadub

MindHelp wrote: »

If you are doing this at home you would be better of using a soda stream (remember this from the 80's, oh the memories) Since home carbonation is mostly done with using yeast it is hard to add more sugar to sweeten the cider as the yeast will just ferment it into alcohol and CO2 in the bottle and the bottle will burst.

yes, Bulmers will filter out all of the yeast and probably heat treat it or add additives to kill any remaining yeast. If a homebrewer was to add sugar to the same sweetness as bulmer and bottle it then it would be just like adding loads of priming sugar, the yeast would brew it and the bottles would explode. Unless the homebrewer put also put in additives to kill off the yeast, or heated it or something.

Bulmers light is brewed out to completion and sweeteners are added. So a homebrewer has no need for a soda stream, if he can live with the yeast. They could just brew regular cider and bottle condition in the usual way but add in sweeteners at the bottling stage. The real sugars will ferment out and fizz up the cider, and the sweetener will provide the sweetness.

Bulmers apple does not taste like real cider at all though, more like vodka and cidona. I never tasted the pear one.

MediaTank

Rather than using an artificial sweetener you can use a non-fermentable sugar to give the sweetness you require. The easiet way to do this is to add lactose (milk sugar) - available from all of the big homebrew places.

Much better than Splenda or the others.

rubadub

MediaTank wrote: »

use a non-fermentable sugar to give the sweetness you require.

It will still have calories which he said were a concern. In fact I think it will have more calories since you will need more lactose to get the same sweetness. Google hits says it is only 20% as sweet as sugar

I forgot about non-fermentable sugars, another is maltodextrin used in athletes post workout shakes.

MediaTank

rubadub wrote: »

It will still have calories which he said were a concern. In fact I think it will have more calories since you will need more lactose to get the same sweetness.

Very true, but it will taste better. Artificial sweetners no matter how good always have a 'bitter' aftertaste.

thelynchfella

rubadub wrote: »

It will still have calories which he said were a concern. In fact I think it will have more calories since you will need more lactose to get the same sweetness. Google hits says it is only 20% as sweet as sugar

I forgot about non-fermentable sugars, another is maltodextrin used in athletes post workout shakes.

as far as i know splenda is maltodextrin