Turbo Cider - a question or 2

BeerNut

No. People were making cider before the invention of the lid.

stuchyg

matrim wrote: »

Took a gravity reading on mine tonight.

The original gravity was 1.046. Gravity now is 1.000. So looks like about 6.3%

I plan to bottle tomorrow evening. I'll be looking at using dextrose to prime, do you still need splenda to sweeten it up.



I've about 10L of cider so was looking at about 60g dextrose. How much splenda would people recommend?

2 tabs when pouring usually does me.

Khannie

Super-Rush wrote: »

Will i not do damage if I remove the lid?

Get in there and have a good oul' goo. There should be foam on the top at this stage.

Super-Rush

I took the top off and had a look.

Plenty of foam on the top and its sort of fizzing rapidly just under the surface.

I fear i may have fecked it though.

I went to push the bung in a bit tighter and ended up pushing it right through and it fell in

I plucked it out without my fingers touching the brew. I hope i haven't tainted it.

BeerNut

It's fine. You're a couple of days into the fermentation and you'd be very unlucky to catch a bug from the bung or your fingers. Now leave it the hell alone for a few weeks and stop worrying.

evolving_doors

Super-Rush wrote: »

I took the top off and had a look.

Plenty of foam on the top and its sort of fizzing rapidly just under the surface.

I fear i may have fecked it though.

I went to push the bung in a bit tighter and ended up pushing it right through and it fell in

I plucked it out without my fingers touching the brew. I hope i haven't tainted it.

in my mind I always think of alcohol being a steriliser in itself (like when they pour the whiskey on the wound before extracting the bullit!)....keep going

Super-Rush

BeerNut wrote: »

It's fine. You're a couple of days into the fermentation and you'd be very unlucky to catch a bug from the bung or your fingers. Now leave it the hell alone for a few weeks and stop worrying.

I'm not going to go near it until Friday.

I'm far too impatient.

BeerNut

Patience is the third most important ingredient in cider.

matrim

stuchyg wrote: »

2 tabs when pouring usually does me.

What do you mean when pouring? As in don't sweeten it while bottle conditioning. Just put it in before you drink it?

stuchyg

matrim wrote: »

What do you mean when pouring? As in don't sweeten it while bottle conditioning. Just put it in before you drink it?

Yea, I will usually pop to small tabs in the glass and then pour cider on top, it's easier to cater to individual taste that way. Imagine you sweeten now and you don't like it, kinda fecks up your batch

matrim

stuchyg wrote: »

Yea, I will usually pop to small tabs in the glass and then pour cider on top, it's easier to cater to individual taste that way. Imagine you sweeten now and you don't like it, kinda fecks up your batch

Got it bottled this evening and got 19 bottles.

Decided to go for a variety and did 5 bottles with no splenda, 5 with 2 tabs and 9 with 1 tab. Just to give me a variety to let me see what the difference is.

Super-Rush

Just checked my brew and the bubbler is rocketing.

blueshed

going to make 2 5lt brews this evening, first brew will be the cloudy AJ and the 2nd will have the apple nectar from concentrate.

plan is about 4 lts of juice in each DJ then going to blend juice, frozen raspberries, raisins. this will go into a bag and pop into the dj. 3 tea bags in 400ml of water and pour 200ml of the stewed tea into each DJ.

blueshed

Lidl have Pear juice atm, €1.49 a lt. just made a apple n pear cider.

Super-Rush

The two weeks are up tomorrow. took a reading just now and its coming out at 1.000.

I'll be bottling tomorrow i reckon or perhaps Monday.

I have a selection of 330ml bottles and 500ml so how mucg sugar/juice should i use to bottle?

303Techno

Hope even though I'm new someone can help. I've got my fermentation bucket etc and yeast packet sorted. Just to grab some Apple Juice next time I'm passing Lidl as it's a bit far.

Whereabouts can you store your bucket? Does it need to be kept in a clean place as I'm hearing a lot about sterilization. I have the sterilization pills too so I'm sorted in that sense.

Also what do the raisins/tea do? Flavor or actually part of making the alcohol? Do I need to be regularly measuring anything is that only a worry if I want a quite specific alcohol %? Am I literally boiling them as normal in with the tea bags till they go to mush or opening the tea bags and using to hold raisins - may sound stupid but want to do this right.

Going to start with this then hopefully get into more favorable variations. Interesting to see if there is any difference in hangover etc. I drink k cider and strongbow, will there be much health benefits to replacing with this?

BeerNut

303Techno wrote: »

Whereabouts can you store your bucket?

The main thing is temperature -- somewhere where it's under 24C.

303Techno wrote: »

Does it need to be kept in a clean place

As long as you have it covered by a lid to kept flies etc out, it'll be fine.

303Techno wrote: »

Also what do the raisins/tea do?

They add tannins, which provide body. Purely fermented apple juice can be a bit thin, so they help counteract that.

303Techno wrote: »

Do I need to be regularly measuring anything is that only a worry if I want a quite specific alcohol %?

You don't need to measure the gravity regularly. You do need to make sure fermentation has finished before you bottle, and taking gravity readings is the only way to be absolutely sure.

303Techno wrote: »

Am I literally boiling them as normal in with the tea bags till they go to mush or opening the tea bags and using to hold raisins - may sound stupid but want to do this right.

Not sure what you mean here. To add raisins I'd boil them briefly in a small amount of water and then toss the whole lot in. To add tea I'd brew the tea as though to drink and just add the liquid in. If your raisins have oil on them -- most do -- you should take that off. The Sunmaid ones are oil-free, I think.

303Techno

Thanks for the help mate, answered everything. Need to get this thing started

matrim

I had a bottle of my batch at the weekend. I went for one with 1 splenda tab and have to say it was very nice. Not too sweet and very refreshing.

giftgrub

Could you prime with another type of juice? Say pear or cranberry?

Khannie

You could, but I'm not sure it would have much effect on flavour.

Conmaicne Mara

I've been sampling, intensively, lately. 330ml bottles I primed with apple juice, 500ml bottles with sugar. After some consideration, and more sampling, I like the apple juice better. Yet I find the sugar to pack a firmer happier punch. But, is that an effect of bottle volume I wonder.

Now to get more apple juice and start all over.

Still having the odd dud swing top bottle, despite changing ALL of the seals, none of the crown capped bottles were duds.

gazahayes

Conmaicne Mara wrote: »

I've been sampling, intensively, lately. 330ml bottles I primed with apple juice, 500ml bottles with sugar. After some consideration, and more sampling, I like the apple juice better. Yet I find the sugar to pack a firmer happier punch. But, is that an effect of bottle volume I wonder.

Now to get more apple juice and start all over.

Still having the odd dud swing top bottle, despite changing ALL of the seals, none of the crown capped bottles were duds.

It may not be the seals but the metal frame could be too loose to seal fully check to see how easy or hard it is to open the non fizzy ones.

Conmaicne Mara

gazahayes wrote: »

It may not be the seals but the metal frame could be too loose to seal fully check to see how easy or hard it is to open the non fizzy ones.

I will take note in future, good point that.

I had an Austrian chef (don't ask) taste the cider I made from Lidl apple juice. I made two batches, one primed with sugar and one primed with apple juice (I think that's how they were anyway). we both agreed the one primed with apple juice was nicer.

I still say the Splenda one works ( ) faster.

giftgrub

just cracked a bottle of whats now my third ever batch...primed with juice and added 2 lidl sweetner tabs.

It only been a week but i couldnt help myself...really tasty. Going to leave the rest for a while.

I have another batch on right now with a cinnamon stick thrown in to see what thats like

AwayWithFaries

Thinking of cracking open a bottle of my latest experiment (4L Apple Juice, 1L Orange & Mango). Had half a bottle when I was bottling it and it tasted lovely. That was two weeks ago so I'm hoping it has been maturing well.

Khannie

Sounds lovely. Interested to hear how it works out. Did you add some sweetener in with it?

blueshed

going to bottle my Apple & Pear cider tonight, it's Lidl 3.5lts cloudy AJ and 1 lt pear juice.

last week I bottled apple & peach, apple and frozen raspberries and a cheaper apple juice and frozen raspberries.

next up is apple and frozen rhubarb and apple with cinnamon n cloves.

Khannie

Doing a cinnamon and cloves one myself at the moment. Primary is finished so I'm going to rack and add the spices in the next few days.

Super-Rush

Its been a week since I bottled.

I'm tempted to chill a bottle for later.