Turbo Cider - a question or 2

Khannie

giftgrub wrote: »

I also have another gallon on the go with cheap concentrate, just to see what its like.

I did that a while back. It's not the best. I even let it mature a good while.

Mister Burns

1st Bottle opened last night after 3 weeks so just had to thank Khannie again - fantastic result. Going to stick another batch on next to have it ready for the "summer" cause this batch isn't going to last long.

Khannie

Ah I'm happy to help, but I picked it all up from various people on here so it's a community effort.

If you like that, you might also like the mixed berries one I did. That I actually do consider mine because I put quite a bit of effort into getting it right. It is flippin' savage gear after only 2 weeks in the bottle (I tried, but I couldn't resist). Nom nom nom.

Khannie

Oh, now that I think about it - I kicked off my first batch with the raisins in the muslin bags yesterday. It's clear to see that they will save quite a bit of arseing. Definitely worth the 2 euro odd investment.

howamidifferent

Where did you get the muslin bag Khannie?

EDIT: Never mind...Just found these

Khannie

I got 2 delivered off ebay (from the homebrew.ie guy) for under 2 euro. That's a good find though. I'll add in another one when I'm getting my next order.

giftgrub

What are the options for sticking fruit in? Something like berries? do you just lamp them in with the juice?

howamidifferent

giftgrub wrote: »

What are the options for sticking fruit in? Something like berries? do you just lamp them in with the juice?

Don't do that. Its a curse to separate the crud afterwards when trying to bottle.
Wrap them in muslin or something similar. The missuses clean tights..

Khannie

howamidifferent wrote: »

The missuses clean tights..

She had given them to me and I didn't use them for ages. Then she saw her tights floating in my booze and she was all "EH...WHAT ARE MY TIGHTS DOING IN THE BOOZE??!!!".

howamidifferent

Khannie wrote: »

She had given them to me and I didn't use them for ages. Then she saw her tights floating in my booze and she was all "EH...WHAT ARE MY TIGHTS DOING IN THE BOOZE??!!!".

Something kinky goin on there with the beer... reminds me of the woman selling her undies thread...

kevc2

I just threw other fruit in and it was a lot of hassle getting it out, I didn't get it all out either. Much better idea putting it in some sort of bag.

blueshed

having a sneaky sample from a brew i bottled on Good Friday, must say very impressed.

giftgrub

Khannie wrote: »

I got 2 delivered off ebay (from the homebrew.ie guy) for under 2 euro. That's a good find though. I'll add in another one when I'm getting my next order.

Do you have the link for that ebay shop? I cant seem to find it

Khannie

http://www.ebay.ie/itm/180821641810

Mister Burns

Khannie wrote: »

Ah I'm happy to help, but I picked it all up from various people on here so it's a community effort.

If you like that, you might also like the mixed berries one I did. That I actually do consider mine because I put quite a bit of effort into getting it right. It is flippin' savage gear after only 2 weeks in the bottle (I tried, but I couldn't resist). Nom nom nom.

Now that I'm demolishing my first batch of cider I need to get going on the next one so do tell more about this mixed berries one - do you just add these to the secondary? how much? do you boil them up first? Does this replace the 2l of additional apple juice for priming? Do I need to cut back on the sweetener? Do all these questions get annoying for you at some point??

Thanks as always
MB

Khannie

Mister Burns wrote: »

do you just add these to the secondary?

Yep. In a muslin bag.

Mister Burns wrote: »

how much?

I added 1 bag of fruits of the forest (750g) and 1 bag of raspberries (500g) blended with 1L of apple juice (I think) to 9L of brewed cider. That turned out "bleedin' savage" so I'll be sticking to that ratio.

Mister Burns wrote: »

do you boil them up first?

No just blend, then put the mush into the muslin, then place into the bucket.

Mister Burns wrote: »

Does this replace the 2l of additional apple juice for priming?

No, you leave it alone for another week or 10 days (until it has fermented out) then remove the muslin and batch prime as usual.

Mister Burns wrote: »

Do I need to cut back on the sweetener?

I did. I went with lidl 3 sweetener tabs per 500ml and I'll probably go with that again, though I may switch to splenda and in that case I'd probably drop it to 2 tabs. For whatever reason, I don't think the berries need as much sweetness as the apple does.

Mister Burns wrote: »

Do all these questions get annoying for you at some point??

Haha. Not yet! I'm delighted that others are trying it. Myself and another lad on here put a bit of effort into getting the method right and I think this is "the one". I'm in the process of making a large batch of it at the moment. Interested to hear how you get on and what you think of it.

Mister Burns

That's brilliant Khannie

Moving house at the weekend from a very small apartment to a house and the wife has already christened the large utility which has a sink etc my “Brewery” so I need to get a few batches on quick to establish it as that before she forgets and starts thinking it can be used for something else! Also think this is a drink she’d like which helps the process dramatically!

Khannie

Mister Burns wrote: »

my “Brewery”

Well played, sir. Well played.

Mister Burns

Khannie wrote: »

Well played, sir. Well played.

Well lets be honest she did buy me the kit so she brought this on herself!

When you're talking bags of fruit I'm taking that to be the Aldi/Lidl frozen kind and for a 23 ltr starting brew I'd use 2.5 bags of each blended with 2.5 additional litres of apple juice?

I'm glad you don't mind the questions cause I seem to keep thinking them up!

Khannie

Mister Burns wrote: »

When you're talking bags of fruit I'm taking that to be the Aldi/Lidl frozen kind and for a 23 ltr starting brew I'd use 2.5 bags of each blended with 2.5 additional litres of apple juice?

Ah I'd probably just toss in the extra half bag myself, but yeah, that's the ratio that I used.

giftgrub

So i caved the other day and popped open a bottle for a little taste-een.

Its drinkable alright but seemed a little on the sour side to me not hugely fizzy (i used 1 and a half carb drops)...I know it has only been 5 days though.

More sugar the next time to make it sweeter? Determined to get it right!!

Khannie

giftgrub wrote: »

Its drinkable alright but seemed a little on the sour side to me not hugely fizzy (i used 1 and a half carb drops)...I know it has only been 5 days though.

Needs a minimum of 2 weeks. I'm not suprirsed it didn't taste great. It wont be properly fizzy before 10 days and 1.5 carb drops per 500ml will only make it moderately fizzy (I think...I've never used the carb drops).

giftgrub wrote: »

More sugar the next time to make it sweeter?

Definitely not more sugar. It just ferments away to alcohol, leaving no sweetness behind. You need to use something that wont ferment (i.e. some kind of sweetener).

howamidifferent

Has any one tried any of the the Kit ciders? at around €18 euro a kit it works out much cheaper than Lidl apple juice which is usually €1.29 a litre... But what's the result like? How does one compare to the other?

Any inputs appreciated.

Khannie

You will probably find kits at their full dilution to be very thin compared to the cloudy apple juice cider so a litre to litre cost isn't really comparable.

I've never done an apple kit, but I did an apple and pear kit a while back. It turned out grand, but I went for a higher abv / less dilution. I also did a pear only kit. It turned out....dilute but drinkable.

howamidifferent

Yeah, I was thinking they might not be great at so cheap a price.
Unless you went for the Muntons Gold @ €30 for the kit...

Khannie

I thought the same as yourself, but read up and it's not supposed to be that great! :eek:

I heard the john bull one (I think that's the name) is supposed to be quite good. I might give one a whirl though. No harm.

giftgrub

I have a new batch (1 gal) on the go now.

Want to make sure I'm priming right, I was going to do about 50ml fresh juice per 500ml bottle.

Is that enough or should i throw in some sweetner tabs as well?

Khannie

50ml should get you the right amount of fizz. You will need the sweetener for sweetness / to remove the dry taste of fully fermented out cider, but not priming.

howamidifferent

I moved a 30L batch of Lidl cloudy Apple Cider to secondary last night on top of a muslin bag of blended fruit & apple juice. I see no activity this morning..I wonder do I need to add another cider yeast sachet to it?

Also put on 24L of Lidl Apple from concentrate with 3Lb honey , and a kilo of fruit in a muslin bag. Bag broke the minute I started to stir and left all fruit escape into the mix... Bubbling mad this morning but I'm gonna have fun trying to separate the crud when bottling time comes.

Khannie

howamidifferent wrote: »

I moved a 30L batch of Lidl cloudy Apple Cider to secondary last night on top of a muslin bag of blended fruit & apple juice. I see no activity this morning..I wonder do I need to add another cider yeast sachet to it?

I was wondering this myself (with my own one). There's not a huge amount of sugar in the stuff you're adding though (compared to the total volume of liquid), so it can look kinda dead. It should be fine. You could take some gravity readings to make sure it's going down though. I'm going to measure mine tonight.

howamidifferent wrote: »

Also put on 24L of Lidl Apple from concentrate with 3Lb honey , and a kilo of fruit in a muslin bag. Bag broke the minute I started to stir and left all fruit escape into the mix... Bubbling mad this morning but I'm gonna have fun trying to separate the crud when bottling time comes.

Ooh. That's gonna be messy alright. I used to do it this way before I got the muslin bags. You'll probably end up with a big crust on top. Don't mind it.

Sounds lovely though.