Turbo Cider - a question or 2

laurence997

sham69 wrote: »

well i took a reading , well i tried.
I took a sample, put it in the case that the hydrometer came in and it gave me a reading of the black 10 just below the yellow (where it says bottle)
problem being I didn't take an initial reading (as I didn't have the hydrometer)

As for the mixture, rank smell of it, raisin bits floating on top but no sign of foam or yeasty look whatsoever.

I tightened up the airlock in case there was air getting in.
I'm due to bottle on Monday so don't know what to do.
Might bottle anyway and see what happens.

The lack of activity in your airlock could also be due to the fact you only have a few litres in what I'm assuming to be 35l containers? You'll only start to see activity in the airlock after pressure has built up in the fermentation vessel. Due to the fact you only have a little juice there is a relatively small amount of CO2 being produced, and the large volume of air in the vessel will take longer to build pressure in(usually there's only a few inches of headroom in the bucket).
Another thing to take into account when using small amounts of juice in a large container is that there will be more oxygen inside the container, possibly leading to a higher risk of bacterial infection, but I really doubt this would have any real effect, some people don't even bother sealing the containers, they just leave lids loosely over them. The CO2 produced, being heavier than oxygen, will form a kind of protective layer over the surface.

We put on another batch of cider yesterday, checked on it this evening (24 hrs in) and the airlock was bubbling a little bit (top very well sealed with duct tape btw). We heated a cup of raisins in a saucepan of Apple juice, mashed them up with a potato masher until they were pulp (had no blender to hand where we were) and the Apple juice had gone Brown, then added the tea leaves from three tea bags and let it infuse for a while. Last time the tea bags floated to the top and seemed to almost go mouldy/stale, so hopefully just using the leaves and filtering them out before bottling will at least look better also used safale s-04 ale yeast. The original gravity was 1.05-1.052, which should result in 6.5% alc. The last batch was in the region of 8.5% (we added a lot of table sugar that time), and while it didn't give it a bad taste at all there really was a strong alcohol smell from it which is a little unappealing. I probably won't be back to check on its progress for a few weeks so it should go all the way to 1.0000 well before we rack it off the lees, which will be another change from the last time where we racked it off at 1.005, though it reactivated in secondary and continued to ferment right down to 0.997. Also, the temperature of the room should stay below 18 degrees which is better than the 22 degrees the last batch was stewing in.

BeerNut

All sounds OK, sham69. The reading seems a little high, so I'd be inclined to give it another week or two, just to be sure. Take a new reading every couple of days to make sure it's stable before you bottle. You should get yourself a proper trial jar to take your readings in. Even a sanitised pint glass would do.

As laurence997 says, it doesn't making any difference whether the lid is sealed or not. People were making beer and cider before lids were invented.

sham69

Ok,
Took another reading today and it was 1.000 on the nose.
So decided to start bottling.

So here's what I did.
I transferred the primary to my secondary bucket through a sieve using the tap on the bucket.

I added Half a litre of Apple juice with 40 Splenda tabs added to it ( 4 per half litre of primary which was 5 litres)
I then bottled by using the tap on the bucket.
1/2 litre bottles which I ran through the dishwasher ( didn't have any steriliser)

Fingers crossed it turns out but I don't hold out much hope

Thanks all for all the advice and help..

Oh final question.
I have the bottles standing up in the cupboard under the stairs, is that ok do they need to be on a rack on their side...
Thanks.

BeerNut

Standing up is fine. It's not a great idea to pour a fermented batch from bucket to bucket as it can oxidise: siphon instead. Also, cider can ferment below 1.000 so do always check for consistent readings, not just a specific number.

sham69

BeerNut wrote: »

Standing up is fine. It's not a great idea to pour a fermented batch from bucket to bucket as it can oxidise: siphon instead. Also, cider can ferment below 1.000 so do always check for consistent readings, not just a specific number.

Thanks beernut,
I had a siphon but it is faulty I think.
I filled it with water from tap in one end but it came out the other so had to the tap from one bucket to another.
Nothimg I can do now but wait.
Cheers.

Happy new year.

sham69

Well,
Major failure it seems....

I tried a bottle on Friday, sour and horrible but fizzy
Came out a kind of Brown colour?

The only thing I didnt do was prime with the cloudy juice, I used Squeeze..

I thought this was not going to work as I didnt see any activity in the bucket, just didnt seem right.

Am I the first person to fail with this simple recipe?

I think I will try again , using a demi john this time.

Thanks all for the advice though.

BeerNut

sham69 wrote: »

I tried a bottle on Friday, sour and horrible but fizzy

I'd give it another two or three months before trying another bottle.

laurence997

Yeah, definitely give it time. I haven't even bottled the last batch and it's been in the fermentation vessel a month, it'll be at least six weeks (minimum, probably twice that) in bottles before I'd expect any sort of decent taste from it. To be honest it should have been bottled a fortnight ago but I've spent Christmas in Clare and have only been in to check on it once, no time to bottle. It'll be interesting to see if the extra bit of time sitting on the lees has an effect on the taste.
The sour taste will at least ease after a while. Also, we sweetened some of the bottles with the lidl tablets last time, at first I thought they just made it taste horrible, they didn't have any effect on the sour taste and gave it a terrible mouthfeel. Now, though, it's a lot better, and while I still rather the dry, the sweetened ones aren't too bad.

sham69

Thanks Lads,
I didnt throw them out.
I tried 2 in total so have a half a dozen or more left.
Will leave them for a while and se how I get on.

giftgrub

Havent done any brewing since the summer...going to start 10 or 15 litres this weekend! cant wait

dasdog

Conditioning, aka dark arts should not be underestimated with this. I'll avoid the sweeteners next time as I'm having to add lemon/lime but it's gone from not nice (two months) to absolutely lovely (brewed last August). Plan is to batch now for a few Friday evenings during the summer.

dylbert

how much apple juice should I use to prime? I want it nice and fizz

Khannie

dylbert wrote: »

how much apple juice should I use to prime? I want it nice and fizz

50ml of apple juice per 500ml bottle (or 100ml per litre if you're batch priming).

wotswattage

Hi Lads think I'm going to try a cider for a change! This thread is a goldmine!!!
From reading (the first few pages anyway) this thread and picking the parts which appealed most to me I've come up with this plan:

Here it is broken down into ingredients and steps..

Ingredients
• Lidl/Aldi cloudy apple juice (23L + 2.3L for priming)
• 1 sachet Cider Yeast (any particular cider yeast to recommend me?)
• 4 Tea Bags
• 1 cup Sunmaid Raisins chopped
• 200 Lidl/Splenda sweetener tablets

Steps
1. Pour 23L apple juice in fermenter
2. Add teabags + raisins to 400ml boiled water. Leave for 15 mins then add to fermenter (I see some people keep the tea bags -shouldn’t do any harm what you guys think?)
3. Wait 15 mins then add yeast + take OG
4. Ferment for 2/3 weeks
5. Take FG
6. Batch Botle prime with 50ml ‘from the carton’ apple juice + 4 sweetener tabs per 500ml bottle
7. Bottle
8. Wait
9. Drink

With regards to the bottling stage, I only have one fermenter so I'll be batch priming and bottling with a syphon killer tap + hose. My last brew was a St. Peters Ruby Red Ale which tasted delicious though I ended up getting quite a bit of sediment/yeast in each bottle and drinking this made for an upset stomach. Pouring slowly into the glass and keeping the sediment in the bottle prevented any such side effects.
I may have disturbed the fermenter a bit on bottling day while moving it to my kitchen and then bottled too soon before it settled back down. This I can avoid next time by moving more carefully/allowing settling time.

I'm just wondering what else I can do to keep the sediment/yeast out of the bottles with my setup? I'd prefer a cider with no sediment.

BeerNut

wotswattage wrote: »

I'd prefer a cider with no sediment.

More sediment will form during bottle conditioning. Your best friend is time: give it six months to a year to settle and then pour carefully.

wotswattage

I don't mind the sediment tastewise it's just that it's very hard on the stomach...
It's just with the cider there are going to be raisins involved and I'll probably get a skin on top so I'm expecting even more sediment/debris than I did with the Ale.

I guess I can alleviate it somewhat with careful moving and settling time (and a bit longer in the bottles though I dunno if I could wait a year!!)

303Techno

wotswattage wrote: »

Hi Lads think I'm going to try a cider for a change! This thread is a goldmine!!!
From reading (the first few pages anyway) this thread and picking the parts which appealed most to me I've come up with this plan:

Here it is broken down into ingredients and steps..

Ingredients
• Lidl/Aldi cloudy apple juice (23L + 2.3L for priming)
• 1 sachet Cider Yeast (any particular cider yeast to recommend me?)
• 4 Tea Bags
• 1 cup Sunmaid Raisins chopped
• 200 Lidl/Splenda sweetener tablets

....

I would say try 150 of those Cologran Sweeteners from Lidl or less, I had used that amount previously and am now planning to lower it as it becomes easier to taste the more you drink. Planning to condition more and use less sweetener.

For the sediment syphoning to secondary is good but I see this isn't an option for you so would just leave it in primary a few weeks after same with the bottling. I sometimes add in homebrew sugar in fermentation stage along with the raisins.

wotswattage

Was thinking of going with less myself anyway as I wouldn't like it too sweet.. 200 is already less than lots of the recipes but sure I'll give 150 a go.

I do plan on getting a second fermenter down the line, but for this brew I'll make do with the one.

Khannie

less is more. I over-sweetened my initial brews I think. You can always add a sweetener to the glass if necessary (though not really splenda - it doesn't dissolve well in the glass)

giftgrub

Just want to check the story with temperatures...

I'm a bit tight for space in the gaff right now, I also have to be aware of the two young kids that could go messing around with a brew.

Theres a shed, but would it be too cold there? Its been 9 or 10 degrees at night in Dublin over the last week or so

Super-Rush

I must crack open a bottle tonight. Have about 25 litres in the spare room that I made last May.

Khannie

giftgrub wrote: »

Theres a shed, but would it be too cold there? Its been 9 or 10 degrees at night in Dublin over the last week or so

I think a blanket is worth about 2 degrees. The fermentation does create some heat.

wotswattage

Cider is go as of Wed afternoon!
OG of 1050 and it's fermenting like mad inside.
Certainly smells a bit more than my two previous beer attempts...

The layer of scum has formed on top, do you guys just leave that as is or should I break it up every now & again with the paddle? If I break it up I'll be giving it plenty of settling time before bottling.

stuchyg

wotswattage wrote: »

Cider is go as of Wed afternoon!
OG of 1050 and it's fermenting like mad inside.
Certainly smells a bit more than my two previous beer attempts...

The layer of scum has formed on top, do you guys just leave that as is or should I break it up every now & again with the paddle? If I break it up I'll be giving it plenty of settling time before bottling.

Just leave it be, introducing anything is risking infection, it will settle out in the next couple days itself

wotswattage

Ok cool I was thinking it would be permanent..

I leave the paddle in the fermenter the whole time anyway so that shouldn't be too much a risk.

stuchyg

wotswattage wrote: »

Ok cool I was thinking it would be permanent..

I leave the paddle in the fermenter the whole time anyway so that shouldn't be too much a risk.

I've never heard of anyone leaving a paddle or anything that's not wrapped in a Muslim bag in a fermenter, have you made beer/cider before?

wotswattage

In the original post you quoted I say I've made beer twice before.

From my researching before I started it seems quite a common thing to do.

stuchyg

wotswattage wrote: »

In the original post you quoted I say I've made beer twice before.

From my researching before I started it seems quite a common thing to do.

Fair enough but can't say of ever done nor heard of anyone that has but if it worked previously for you then have at it brother

wotswattage

Think it was on the Craigtube youtube channel he recommended doing it, I certainly saw it on 2 or 3 different places anyway. Seems easier than re-sanitising the paddle if you want to give the brew a stir at any stage.

My first two beers were excellent so if it ain't broke...!!

flanaganred

I tasted a bottle I made last summer, the artificial taste from the sweetener is finally gone,I noticed a marked improvement after around six months but its hard to leave them alone for that long!