Recommendations for beginner kit for Cider from Apples

Tuttlinghorn

Hi & thanks in advance for any pointers

I have a few apple trees - 3 heavy producers of some kind of hybrid cooker / eaters ( which makes lovely juice especially later in season as the ripen on the tree or ground )

Plus this year a couple of eaters that finally started producing

I have the kit to make juice ( a Vigo pulper and a Press). Rough estimate is I probably can produce about 60 litres of juice - probably more this year.

Any cider starter kits eg on geterbrewed seem to be for people using apple concentrate , home brew west is out of stock .. and I don’t know enough to navigate the various individual components that might be on geterbrewed.

Anyone know of a place I can order a kit or failing that any ‘must have’ list for making say 20-30 litres of hard cider ?

thanks !

Tuttlinghorn

I am not sure what I did differently but finally turned up a Kit which looks promising -

I’d appreciate any inputs on the kit eg anything that might be missing ?

List of the kit is below in case the link above doesn’t work

Thanks again

2 x 33litre fermenters

1 Airlock

1 Syphon

1 Pack of Campden Tablets

1 Pectic Enzyme

1 Cider Yeast

1 Hydrometer

1 Thermometer

1 Bottle Filling Stick

1 Bottle Capper

1 Steriliser

100 bottle caps

rje66

LLooks Like everything u need is there. Most important thing is hygiene. Keep everything clean then sterilise. A good thing to always remember. Cleaning is not sterilising and sterilising is not cleaning. Take a gravity reading, it will be something like, eg 1.067 on hydrometer. Get your juice into FV add yeast. Watch out for fruit flies. Air lock on. Place in suitable location for ideal temperature. Yeast like stable temps, not up and down. Let ferment away, it may blow up through airlock if there isn't enough head space in FV. Once fermenting is over take a reading eg1.012 work out abv. Then it a waiting game 5-7months. If its too bitter you can back sweeten with apple juice.

Tuttlinghorn

Thanks @rje66

I found another beginners kit but this time with 1 Fermenting bucket, but with side taps instead.

any experience of using 1 bucket vs 2 and if one method is easier etc?

https://www.geterbrewed.com/brew-kit-extra/

This kit below is missing Enzyme, cider yeast, campden tablets (?) but I'm sure i can add those to the order

• 1 x 33 Litre graduated GEB fermenter
• 1 x Tap with 2 rubber seals for each side of the fermenter wall
• 1 x  Bubbler airlock and Grommet
• 1 x 100g of steriliser
• 1 x Hydrometer
• 1 x Stick on thermometer stripe to monitor fermentation temperature in the fermentation bucket
• 1 x Bottle Filling Stick - this attaches to the tap when ready to bottle and is spring-loaded for easy bottle-filling
• 1 x Bottle Capper
• 1 x Packet of caps (100)
• 1 x Beer Spoon 50 for mixing
• 1 x Bottle Brush
• 1 x Sachet of Priming Sugar for priming your bottles

Optional extras

• 1 x Bottle Draining Tree 50

••1 x Bottle Eco Rinser

rje66

Been ages since I did cider, doing all grain beer these days. If brewing in general is something you are likely to be doing, go down the keg route. Bottling very quickly gets to be a major PITA. Get 2 bucket you will use them.

rje66

Nationalhomebrewclub.ie

Have a look here, there is a cider section

rje66

https://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/index.php?topic=4308.0

Tuttlinghorn

hi again - I’ve got my kit now ( the one with 2 buckets) and am about to start juicing apples.

Wondering ( based on @rje66 comments) if I need to sterilise these new buckets before use ?

the kit came with ‘chemclean’. Reading the packet it seems like vicious stuff , maybe more intended to get equipment clean after usage.

Any recommendations on what I can get to sterilise clean equipment (assuming I need to )?

Diluted Milton fluid ..???

BeerNut

Yes, you need to sanitise before use. Milton will do it if you have some. Otherwise, to 20L of water add 30ml of thin bleach and 30ml of vinegar (do not mix the bleach and vinegar neat). That will give you a no-rinse sanitiser which sanitises the inside of the bucket in five minutes, and you can put any other equipment you're using into it to be sanitised.

Tuttlinghorn

thanks for all the tips and help here

23 litres of juice with Camden tablets added today .. SG was 1038.

this evening I’ve read that it’s a bad idea to allow any air gap in a FV ( I now have 23 litres in a 33 litre vat).

I’ve also read that initial fermentation can be quite violent and there might be foam kicking out of the bucket.

The FV is in a shed and I’m not too worried if there’s leakage, but I’m not sure if I need to top up the fermenting vat ASAP ( ie next weekend ) and fill to the brim - or do I wait couple of days after fermentation has started and settled and then fill to the brim ..?

BeerNut

Don't worry about the air. Fermentation will create a lid of CO2 on top of the liquid to stave off oxidation. It'll be fine as long as you leave it alone. The only thing you need to do is cover it to stop things falling in. Cider fermentations aren't anything like as vigorous as beer, I've found.

You added campden tablets to the juice and killed off the wild yeast, so what are you using for yeast? Did you add some?

Tuttlinghorn

thanks @BeerNut

I juiced apples and added campden tabs on the 21st,

next evening added pectolase ( realising I could’ve added it previous day) ,

12 hours later added yeast - Mangrove Jacks cider yeast. Lid and Airlock is in place

I realised this morning I probably had too much water in airlock so I poured some out. Hopefully won’t be a problem as I had to take out the airlock plus bung briefly.

FV is in a room with temp at about 20 degrees. Yeast went in at midday Sept 23rd but no bubbles yet …

eastie17

I was thinking about doing this, have 4 apple trees and a massive crop this year.

Was thinking about doing this but it sounds very complicated.

Is there a ladybird version anywhere taking you from haven’t a clue, where’s what to buy through to step by step.

Would also be interested in just doing apple juice but I presume that’s a step in it anyway.

Thanks all

BeerNut

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123848767#Comment_123848767

Sounds perfect. The airlock is not an any-way essential part of the process, so don't worry at all about how it's set up, nor the lack of bubbles through it. Give it at least a week before touching it and then take a gravity reading.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123848793#Comment_123848793

The hard work is in juicing the apples. Once you have juice, making cider is dead easy: add your juice (cloudy, if store-bought) to a sanitised food-grade vessel, add yeast (a sachet of champagne yeast is best, but any viable yeast will work) and leave it to ferment. In about 4-6 weeks, that'll be cider, albeit flat and very dry. I find it needs to be bottled for three months after that before it's drinkable, and is best after six.

magicbastarder

interestingly, a chap i knew who knew his homebrewing once said to me 'you need to be hygenic but don't worry about absolute sterility'; and i've often wondered at the importance, given the apples you use are hardly sterile, i've used windfall apples and bruised apples, and surely they'd be carrying contaminants in?

BeerNut

There are good contaminants and bad contaminants. The wild yeast on your apples is grand, but you don't want it out-competed by whatever lives in the scratches in your fermenter, biding its time.

Tuttlinghorn

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123848793#Comment_123848793

I’ve been pressing / juicing my apples for a few years so I already had that gear. No one in the house eats the apples but everyone liked the juice.

IMO If you think you’ll do it annually and have the cash then you can get a Vigo fruit press. Vigo also make a ‘scratter’ - which I recently discovered is the term for a yoke that minces up the apples, so you can then squeeze them.
maybe have a look for some second hand versions of the above ?

That way you can decide each year to do juice or cider or both. The build quality on the kit above seems solid and I’m expecting will last many years

(Also seems possible to DIY a juice press if you’re handy …. unlike me )

magicbastarder

look what youtube suggested for me this evening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uid3abl2VRE

i wonder did he sterilise the baths at 6:20 in.

Tuttlinghorn

hello again … I’m getting to the stage where I think I can go for Racking and a secondary

The yeast was added on Sept 23 and fermentation ( at least proper ‘bubbling’) started on Sept 28th.
Active bubbling stopped around 9-10th October - about 10 days after bubbling started

however there’s still a buildup of gas inside the FV, if I push down on the FV lid, its easy to make it bubble a little bit more, and the gas pressure is keeping the water in the airlock into the second chamber.

2 questions -

1 … should I wait longer before racking or just go for it now. I have not taken a new hydrometer reading as I don’t want to lift the lid until I’m sure I’m transferring / racking

And … my plan is to rack the 22 litres into another identically sized FV - 33 litre capacity.

2 - do I need to fill this FV right to the brim to avoid contamination while I leave it for a couple of months to improve ? I can squeeze more apple juice if needs be and as long as this doesn’t cause a problem ( new wild yeast = new primary fermentation ???)

thanks !

BeerNut

You need to take more hydrometer readings: they're the only way to tell if fermentation has stopped. Bubbles and gas pressure don't mean anything useful, and the lid's only purpose is to stop things falling in when you're not looking — it doesn't prevent infections or oxidation. Since it's pretty clear that fermentation has been happening, you're at much less risk of picking up an infection now than at the start. Take a series of gravity readings using sanitised equipment about two or three days apart, and if you get three readings the same in a row, you can be confident that fermentation is done.

Re racking to secondary: why are you planning to do that? There's a risk of oxidation, so what benefit are you hoping to get from it?

You do not need to fill the fermenter to the brim. Adding more apple juice would restart fermentation, stretching the process out and rendering your gravity readings useless.

If it were me, I would ensure that fermentation has stopped via gravity readings, batch prime it, bottle it and leave it alone for six months.

Tuttlinghorn

thanks a lot @BeerNut thats really useful. To answer your question on why rack to a secondary container - answers are a combo of ‘it’s what I’ve read you’re supposed to do ‘ + ‘ I got two buckets in this kit and I might as well use the second ‘

…. plus it seemed a good idea to get rid of what I expect will be a large amount of gunk ( lees?) at the bottom & ensure this doesn’t get mixed into the rest of the liquid, when I start to siphon out and bottle.

Last one - if I understand batch priming correctly then I’ll need to somehow mix in a liquid sugar mix to the whole batch, before I bottle. Might this also risk stirring up the lees into the cider ?

BeerNut

There's a vast amount of nonsense and bad advice about home brewing out there, so always ask what something is for. Knowing the principles behind the process will help you when and if something goes wrong and you have to improvise.

Yes, you will get rid of that lees if you siphon to secondary, but then new lees will form in that vessel too. And new lees will also form in the bottles. Don't fear the lees, just be careful when siphoning and serving. If you batch prime, you'll be leaving the lees behind when you rack to your bottling bucket, and then you won't get any gunk in the bottles. That renders the secondary stage unnecessary, while still making use of your second bucket.

I used to always do a secondary with hop-forward pale ales, because I didn't want the lees interfering with the hop flavour. But after several batches I found it wasn't making any positive difference.

To batch prime, sanitise your second bucket, add in your sugar solution, and then siphon the cider on top of it, leaving the lees behind. There are lots of priming sugar calculators online for working out how much sugar you need.

Tuttlinghorn

Sounds like a plan - thanks again @BeerNut