Turbo Cider - a question or 2

Padraig Mor

parttime wrote: »

That is what I use and it works just fine. After a few uses,however the caps dont make quite as good a seal,and so you cant keep the fizz in.

I'm just going to use them for these 'trial runs'. Once I get going on proper kits, it'll be glass bottles.

parttime

I would too if I could find some 1.5l bottles;)

Padraig Mor

parttime wrote: »

I would too if I could find some 1.5l bottles;)

I think a 'tipsy' smilie is needed for that!:pac:

Padraig Mor

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Still undecided on the sweetening - sounds like the Splenda will taste the best, but I think it needs to be heated to dissolve which will make it awkward to test different sweetening levels in different bottles.

Hmm...... had coffee with a sachet of Canderel (also sucralose) earlier - rank, very strong artificial taste. I know it's not the same as cider, but reckon I'll chance the Lidl tablets.

Padraig Mor

Popped my 'home brew cherry' over the weekend with the TC! 3 litres of cloudy apple juice plus 1 litre of red grape juice, to be topped up with another litre or so of apple juice in the next couple of days. It's a bit....red (well, duh!)....which I hadn't considered - might use white grape juice (if I can get it) next time to try to keep the apple colour in the drink. OG was about 1.053 (ish - I used the hydrometer tube to hold the liquid so it was a bit difficult to read), so should end up pushing 7% alcohol by the time it's finished. The bottle is placed in a cupboard at 17 - 19 degrees; apparently a bit lower is better for cider, but there's not much I can do about that. Pitched half a sachet of rehydrated yeast at half eleven Saturday night; nine hours later a rather attractive pattern of yeast / crud / whatever (somehow related to the shape of the base of the bottle I presume) had formed on top:

This disappeared over the next 8 hours or so and it doesn't look like there's much happening now, but I can hear plenty of fizzing so I'm presuming that's fermentation storming away. Guess my worries of an explosive krausen were for nowt! Will add the rest of the apple juice when things go a bit quieter - maybe tomorrow or Wednesday.

Khannie

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Canderel (also sucralose)

Canderel is aspartame based AFAIK (edit: and aspartame is not suitable for bottle sweetening).

Padraig Mor

Khannie wrote: »

Canderel is aspartame based AFAIK (edit: and aspartame is not suitable for bottle sweetening).

Said sucralose on the package!


edit: checked it out, and 'normal' Canderel is aspartame, but they now also do a sucralose sweetener, which is what I used.

Carawaystick

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Will add the rest of the apple juice when things go a bit quieter - maybe tomorrow or Wednesday.

dunno about cider, but when brewing beer, adding any oxygen to the brew after fermentation starts causes oxidisation and the brew tastes like wet cardboard.

So I'd either not add the extra juice, or pour it very slowly in through a funnel or such to avoid splashing.

Your fermenter should be mostly CO2 but its a risk.

Alternatively, skim some of the krausen and ferment the apple juice in another fermenter.

Padraig Mor

Carawaystick wrote: »

dunno about cider, but when brewing beer, adding any oxygen to the brew after fermentation starts causes oxidisation and the brew tastes like wet cardboard.

So I'd either not add the extra juice, or pour it very slowly in through a funnel or such to avoid splashing.

Your fermenter should be mostly CO2 but its a risk.

Alternatively, skim some of the krausen and ferment the apple juice in another fermenter.

Was actually just thinking about this earlier. Others had posted that they added some of the juice later, but didn't give details. Might get hold of a funnel and some tubing and try to add it to the bottom of the fermentation. Possibly better to add it when it's actively fermenting too.

Padraig Mor

Had a quick check of this Saturday. Bubbling has now stopped and SG was 1.000, so I guess it's pretty much finished up. I'll take another reading in the next couple of days to make sure. Tasted the hydrometer sample - for QA purposes, naturally - and, while it's obviously still a bit rough, it does taste like, well, cider! The apple taste is a small bit 'watery' though. Has anyone tried adding apple extracts or oil to their finished cider to give it a stronger apple taste?

Thundercats Ho

I'm on my 1st batch of cider, and i will be adding the stage 2 part in the link below. I'll be doing so in about a week or two.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/caramel-apple-hard-cider-292770/

I don't know where to buy frozen concentrate, but reckon i could just boil 1.5L of apple juice until it becomes syrupy and add it in.
I'm undecided about adding the caramel syrup to it.

Padraig Mor

Bottled my first turbo cider batch (4L Lidl cloudy apple juice, 1L red grape juice) recently, adding more apple juice at a rate of 100ml/L for carbonation. After 10 days in the bottle, I tried my first taster last night and tried a few different combinations of sweetener (Cologran, xylitol) and apple flavouring oils. Although I had had my doubts during fermentation, the cider looks great - like red grapefruit juice. It's also perfectly carbonated - very fizzy. Taste unadulterated is a bit sour and watery (as is to be expected, particularly at this early stage) but the addition of 4 teaspoons per bottle xylitol, plus a drop of green apple flavouring results in a pretty bloody nice drink - not too sweet, with a good apple taste! And it sure as hell doesn't taste like 7.3% alcohol......

giftgrub

Hit the shed over the weekend to dig out the home brew gear.

Havent done anything since this time last year, going to order up some yeast, and a few other bits that seem to have gone missing, (bungs, where do they go?)

I'll start a batch hopefully this weekend

TinCanMan

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Bottled my first turbo cider batch (4L Lidl cloudy apple juice, 1L red grape juice) recently, adding more apple juice at a rate of 100ml/L for carbonation. After 10 days in the bottle, I tried my first taster last night and tried a few different combinations of sweetener (Cologran, xylitol) and apple flavouring oils. Although I had had my doubts during fermentation, the cider looks great - like red grapefruit juice. It's also perfectly carbonated - very fizzy. Taste unadulterated is a bit sour and watery (as is to be expected, particularly at this early stage) but the addition of 4 teaspoons per bottle xylitol, plus a drop of green apple flavouring results in a pretty bloody nice drink - not too sweet, with a good apple taste! And it sure as hell doesn't taste like 7.3% alcohol......

Can you get the grape juice in Lidl as well?

loyatemu

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Bottled my first turbo cider batch (4L Lidl cloudy apple juice, 1L red grape juice) recently, adding more apple juice at a rate of 100ml/L for carbonation. After 10 days in the bottle, I tried my first taster last night and tried a few different combinations of sweetener (Cologran, xylitol) and apple flavouring oils. Although I had had my doubts during fermentation, the cider looks great - like red grapefruit juice. It's also perfectly carbonated - very fizzy. Taste unadulterated is a bit sour and watery (as is to be expected, particularly at this early stage) but the addition of 4 teaspoons per bottle xylitol, plus a drop of green apple flavouring results in a pretty bloody nice drink - not too sweet, with a good apple taste! And it sure as hell doesn't taste like 7.3% alcohol......

be careful with the Xylitol - it supposedly has laxative qualities...

Padraig Mor

TinCanMan wrote: »

Can you get the grape juice in Lidl as well?

Yes, €1.30. I think it's actually a mixture of grape types as it's just called "grape juice", rather than "red grape juice". It is red though!

Padraig Mor

loyatemu wrote: »

be careful with the Xylitol - it supposedly has laxative qualities...

It does! But you'd want to be drinking a fair drop of the cider to get the squirts though apparently! I've made another batch now batch sweetened with 2 Cologran and 2 tsp xylitol per 500ml bottle. Cheaper than just xylitol and, on a few test bottles, seems to work well.

Thundercats Ho

I had great success with the cider below, so i did another batch on Saturday.
I couldn't get to Lidl to get the cloudy apple juice there, so just got the cloudy apple juice from Aldi as i live close by. It's still 100% not from concentrate.
After 4 days it hasn't started fermenting at all.

Any ideas?
Would agitating it and leaving it be for another few days be worth it?
Should it take this long for fermenting to start?

Thundercats Ho wrote: »

I'm on my 1st batch of cider, and i will be adding the stage 2 part in the link below. I'll be doing so in about a week or two.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/caramel-apple-hard-cider-292770/

I don't know where to buy frozen concentrate, but reckon i could just boil 1.5L of apple juice until it becomes syrupy and add it in.
I'm undecided about adding the caramel syrup to it.

BeerNut

How do you know it's not fermenting?

Thundercats Ho

There's absolutely no activity in the airlock.
I know that's not the only indicator, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of 'foam' on top of the liquid. I'll check that again later.

Padraig Mor

Thundercats Ho wrote: »

There's absolutely no activity in the airlock.
I know that's not the only indicator, but there doesn't seem to be much in the way of 'foam' on top of the liquid. I'll check that again later.

My turbo ciders had very little foam too - usually only a bit for 12 hours or so on day 1 / 2. What they did do though was fizz - stick your ear up to the fermenter - can you hear fizzing?

jackofalltrades

Looking to follow the original recipe and make about 23 Litres.
Does anyone know how much yeast you would need to do this?

I have a 5g sachet of Gervin GV13 cider yeast, would that be enough?
I also have a 7g sachet of white wine yeast.

laurence997

jackofalltrades wrote: »

Looking to follow the original recipe and make about 23 Litres.
Does anyone know how much yeast you would need to do this?

I have a 5g sachet of Gervin GV13 cider yeast, would that be enough?
I also have a 7g sachet of white wine yeast.

A 5g sachet should be enough, though it wouldn't have any adverse impact to use 7g either. You are probably best off sticking with the cider yeast the first time round. Best of luck!

thereitisgone

Hello all looking for a bit of help. Planning my first turbo cider batch and looking for advice. Would something like this product do for the yeast and do away with the raisins as in a all in one for yeast and activation not sure do i still need teabags.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/he_c_productdetail.cfm?ProductID=18

Buona Fortuna

thereitisgone wrote: »

Hello all looking for a bit of help. Planning my first turbo cider batch and looking for advice. Would something like this product do for the yeast and do away with the raisins as in a all in one for yeast and activation not sure do i still need teabags.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/he_c_productdetail.cfm?ProductID=18

Hi thereits - my own relative newby view (so take it with a pinch of salt) is its a bit overkill. I've made turbo cider a couple of times and copied Padraig Mor. Worked great. I'd make it more often but cider isn't quite my thing.

Satriale

thereitisgone wrote: »

Hello all looking for a bit of help. Planning my first turbo cider batch and looking for advice. Would something like this product do for the yeast and do away with the raisins as in a all in one for yeast and activation not sure do i still need teabags.

http://www.wyeastlab.com/he_c_productdetail.cfm?ProductID=18

I started a gallon this evening using a basic Youngs wine and beer yeast. I usually activate with some 30 degree water and a spoon of sugar, though I didn't bother this evening and it's started up already. I've made it before using washed yeast cake after a beer brew. It always tastes great.

UnknownSpecies

Just put on my first turbo cider last night too. 14L of Lidl's cloudy apple juice made to this recipe, but with Safale S-04 English Ale yeast instead. I wasn't sure about using all the sugar needed for that recipe but hopefully it turns out ok! I'll be bottling it and giving it out to family for Christmas.

KAGY

UnknownSpecies wrote:

, I wasn't sure about using all the sugar needed for that recipe but hopefully it turns out ok! I'll be bottling it and giving it out to family for Christmas.

It will be strong! If I remember correctly I think the aj on it's own gives a abv of 6.5.%

UnknownSpecies

KAGY wrote: »

It will be strong! If I remember correctly I think the aj on it's own gives a abv of 6.5.%

The OG was 1.050 so it'll be interesting to see how low it finishes out. Anywhere around 6% would be great.

thereitisgone

Just getting ready to start 20 litres, measured the apple juice sugar content and it showed 1.050 without adding sugar so going with that.
Exciting times.