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Turbo Cider - a question or 2

Brewie

Hi all,

I'm going to try make some turbo cider. I found this recipe on boards posted by Khannie
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?p=81645821

Recipe: Cloudy apple juice turbo cider
A few people have PM'd me for this, so here's the standard cloudy apple juice turbo cider that I make. Recipe stolen from elsewhere. Input also from BeerNut (thanks).

Lots of lidl or aldi cloudy apple juice (pic of the lidl one).
Some raisins - sunmaid are best as they have no added oil. Not too many. Even a small amount can raise the OG considerably.
Tea bags - I use 1 tea bag per 7-8L of apple juice.
1 sachet yeast.

Pour all the juice into your fermenting bucket. It helps speed things up considerably if you pierce a hole with a sanitised knife diagonally opposite the pouring hole.
Simmer the tea bags until you have real tar. Don't use too much water here. It'll water down your cider.
Add the raisins to the boil mix a few minutes before you're finished boiling.
Remove the tea bags.
I use a blending wand to make a mess out of the raisins at this point to expose the sugars to the yeast. I'm not overly aggressive. Just enough to make chunks of raisin.
Dump the tea and raisin mix into your apple juice.
Sprinkle yeast on top.
Wait about 2 weeks.
Prime, bottle.

Just to be sure I am reading this correctly the following steps should be performed;

Pour all the juice into the ferm. bin (23 litres - I have a 33l bin)
do the boiling/simmering tea bags & raisin step and then put in ferm bin. I think I will go for 3 teabags and a little under a cup of raisins for my attempt.
Put the yeast in on top. Question - how much yeast? (I bought some cider yeast when buying my kit - suitable for 5gallons (22.7litres) so I think I'll just throw the lot in.
Leave the mixture in the bin fermenting until I get a bubble every couple of minutes (taken from the "Homebrew Beer Howto" sticky). Should take about too weeks according to many posts on the internet.
Next step I prime the bottles. Which is best? A teaspoon of sugar per bottle (500ml) or some good quality apple juice? Not sure what to do here.
After bottles primed & filled, I leave it at least 4 weeks, then the drinking may begin.

How does that sound? Am I heading in the right direction?

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NewCorkLad

Its not 2 weeks fermenting yet so gonna hang on my supplies could still arrive.

Donadea Leo

NewCorkLad wrote: »

Its not 2 weeks fermenting yet so gonna hang on my supplies could still arrive.

you could divide your 2 litres of apple juice by x amount of bottles and put your small measure of apple juice in each bottle and top up.

NewCorkLad

Donadea Leo wrote: »

you could divide your 2 litres of apple juice by x amount of bottles and put your small measure of apple juice in each bottle and top up.

I have a splenda substitute I will use if my order doesnt arrive and I have to go straight to bottle, dividing up the priming juice could get messy.

Donadea Leo

NewCorkLad wrote: »

I have a splenda substitute I will use if my order doesnt arrive and I have to go straight to bottle, dividing up the priming juice could get messy.

fair enough patience is an essential ingredient with the home brewing after all.

Donadea Leo

Donadea Leo wrote: »

fair enough patience is an essential ingredient with the home brewing after all.

just in case, the sweetener will only add sweetness to your cider and won t carbonate it for you. You ll need the apple juice or sugar for carbonation.
equally the apple juice or sugar wont sweeten the cider when entered at bottling stage as the sweetness will be fermented out.
so you need to add both if you want a bit of fizz and some sweetness. Also make sure the sweetener isn t aspartame based. It has to be sucralose it ll say it on ingredients. If you want to avoid the sweetener then mix with apple juice when you are drinking it. I.e. In the glass.

you may already know all this but if not it may save some disappointment.

NewCorkLad

Donadea Leo wrote: »

just in case, the sweetener will only add sweetness to your cider and won t carbonate it for you. You ll need the apple juice or sugar for carbonation.
equally the apple juice or sugar wont sweeten the cider when entered at bottling stage as the sweetness will be fermented out.
so you need to add both if you want a bit of fizz and some sweetness. Also make sure the sweetener isn t aspartame based. It has to be sucralose it ll say it on ingredients. If you want to avoid the sweetener then mix with apple juice when you are drinking it. I.e. In the glass.

you may already know all this but if not it may save some disappointment.

Thanks you just saved my cider I thought it was apple juice or sweetner. I will have to check my sweetner for aspartame or sucralose, it is the sweetner from aldi if you have used this 1.

Donadea Leo

NewCorkLad wrote: »

Thanks you just saved my cider I thought it was apple juice or sweetner. I will have to check my sweetner for aspartame or sucralose, it is the sweetner from aldi if you have used this 1.

i haven't used the one from aldi. You could leave it out at bottling stage and add to glass when drinking, it doesn't matter so much if its aspartame based as far as i know if you use it this way. I have made a few small batches and added splenda tabs (crushed) 2 per bottle and then added apple juice to glass for some extra sweetness when drinking it. I don't drink too much cider so don't mind the extra effort.

blueshed

i go with about 50ml of cloudy AJ in each 500ml btl and either 1 or 2 of the Lidl sweetner tabs in each btl.

calnand

I completely forgot I have a few bottles of this, gave a few to friends and they loved it, so making 20L for them soon, I normally hate cider but I love this, especially after leaving it alone for a while, it's now about 2 months in the bottle and i have only 2 left, must make another batch soon. has anyone ever used the craft range cider yeast , I'll be making an order soon and saw this, anyone know much about it?

Paddy The Pirate

Got all of my cider bottled on Thursday! To avoid using artificial sweeteners I used Xylitol, and primed with the Lidl apple juice, now I just have to wait!

tteknulp

I made cider based on khannie's original recipe to 10ltr added 500g of frozen raspberries to secondary also, primed with 1ltr A.J. Used 70 tabs to sweeten, have to say after 5 weeks in bottle it's tasting good, I'm definitely going to do again, a big thanks to khannie for his help

KAGY

Hi all, does anyone know what the og of apple juice is without any extra fermentables? I forgot to take the reading at the start. Ended up 0.993.

BTW Added a few cloves (8-10?) to a 5L trial in the primary, quite a strong but pleasant taste, hoping that it'll mellow out over the months.

BeerNut

Tends to be around the 1.050 mark in my experience.

tteknulp

KAGY wrote: »

Hi all, does anyone know what the og of apple juice is without any extra fermentables? I forgot to take the reading at the start. Ended up 0.993.

BTW Added a few cloves (8-10?) to a 5L trial in the primary, quite a strong but pleasant taste, hoping that it'll mellow out over the months.

Mine was 1.058 fg was similar to that it was around 8.3% I added 500g Dextrose though and 500g raspberries

KAGY

BeerNut wrote: »

Tends to be around the 1.050 mark in my experience.

That would put it mine around 7.3% seems a little high. I must check my hydrometer, it's a plastic coopers one and is leaning to one side.
I also had another trial where I added 400g fresh Black currants to five litres so that must be about 8-9%

Khannie

KAGY wrote: »

Hi all, does anyone know what the og of apple juice is without any extra fermentables?

The lidl stuff has usually been around 1.042 - 1.045 for me without extra fermentables in it.

rayquinn1

Just planning on starting my first TC. A 10 litre cloudy juice batch to start with. I have a cider yeast with added sweetener. Should I use the whole sachet or what are the recommendations?

BeerNut

rayquinn1 wrote: »

I have a cider yeast with added sweetener. Should I use the whole sachet or what are the recommendations?

You'll end up with a very very sweet cider if you do that: those sachets are designed for 20L. Better to get a non-sweetened yeast for 10L

rayquinn1

Thanks BeerNut! But what if I use half the sachet?

BeerNut

I'd be worried about not having enough viable yeast cells.

Padraig Mor

Going to revive this thread if no one minds.....

I was going to start homebrewing a few months back but eventually put it on the long finger as I'm not sure I've got enough space. I think it's time to start now though! Rather than getting all the kit etc and going straight in at the deep end, I think I'll start off nice and easy (and with a smaller volume) - and turbo cider seems to fit the bill. My plan is as follows, based on the many suggestions here, and other fora; any comments appreciated:

Add 3L Lidl cloudy apple juice and 1L red grape juice to 5L freshly emptied water bottle.
Add cider yeast and swirl gently.
Attach cap and fasten loosely. (and loosen even further once per day to relieve pressure).
When vigorous fermentation has finished (3 – 5 days), add further litre of apple juice.
Leave for another 10 days or so and check gravity (removing sample with sterile pipette).
When gravity has stabilised over 2 consecutive days, time to bottle.
Add 100 ml fresh apple juice per litre of cider to a second demijohn, along with appropriate sweeteners.
Siphon the fermented cider into the new container, avoiding taking up crud from the bottom of the fermenter.
Siphon the primed and sweetened juice into sanitised bottles, and cap.
Leave for at least 1 month, and preferably 3.

I've left adding the last litre of juice for a few days in case of bubbling over.
I've included grape juice as some posters say that it adds to the flavour (have I added too much?). I'm presuming the grape juice will also add tannins (it certainly tastes dry any time I've drank it), meaning adding tea is unnecessary - does anyone know whether this substitution would work?
I'm still a bit conflicted on sweeteners - I like it Stella Cidre sweet so I'm estimating 7 - 8 Lidl Cologran tablets per litre. However, I can easily detect saccharine tastes so perhaps I'd be better off using Splenda, or even Stevia?

BeerNut

Sounds OK, but remember to sanitise your fermenter and demijohn too. I've been happy with the results I've got from Splenda.

loyatemu

I sweetened my last batch with Lidl Cologran (supposedly the same as Splenda) and found it too sweet and with a noticeable aftertaste - this was with only 1 tablet per bottle, so beware. Dunno about Stevia, I'd never heard of the stuff until I watched Breaking Bad.

Possibly best to make the cider dry and then sweeten it when drinking.

Padraig Mor

BeerNut wrote: »

Sounds OK, but remember to sanitise your fermenter and demijohn too. I've been happy with the results I've got from Splenda.

Would they really need to be sanitised if they're just - opened 5L bottles of water?

loyatemu

Padraig Mor wrote: »

Would they really need to be sanitised if they're just - opened 5L bottles of water?

if you've just opened them and poured away the water, then no.

BeerNut

Maybe just me then, but I would not be at all confident that the containers are sanitisied. Here's the Food Safety Authority's 2009 report on bacteria levels in Irish bottled water.

Padraig Mor

BeerNut wrote: »

Maybe just me then, but I would not be at all confident that the containers are sanitisied. Here's the Food Safety Authority's 2009 report on bacteria levels in Irish bottled water.

Interesting, thanks for that BeerNut. I had presumed bottles water was filtered to remove microbes but apparently "European legislation does not allow the treatment of natural mineral waters and spring waters in order to remove microorganisms". Now, a few bacteria shouldn't be an issue - in a normal fermentation, they will be vastly outcompeted by the yeast. Also, apple juice would generally be a hostile environment due to its low pH. However, to my tastebuds anyway, cloudy juice seems to have a somewhat higher pH - pair this with yeast that takes a while to get going (if, say, it's a bit old) and you could be in trouble. Guess sanitisation it is so!

On that topic, did I read that there had been some change to commonly available thin bleaches recently, meaning that the amount to be used may need to be adjusted?

parttime

Have made this 6 times now,and it really is lovely. 100mls of apple juice in a 1.5 litre bottle gives a nice fizz. It is very strong,but it is quite thick and heavy unlike bottled cider in the pubs/supermarket,so you cannot drink it like regular cider. Although if you did you would be getting a taxi early anyway!

Padraig Mor

Well, have a big package from The Homebrew Company hopefully getting to me tomorrow. Most of it isn't necessary for the cider, but the yeast and hydrometer will be!

Does anyone know how vigorously these fermentations tend to go? My plan above is to 3/4 fill the demijohn for the first few days, and then top up. However, obviously I can't get a proper hydrometer reading that way so would prefer to put all the juice in at the start - if it's not going to explode all over my cupboard that is! I'm using the Godzawa French cider yeast, which I'm guessing not many people have used yet (new on the scene I believe). Plan is to put use half the sachet for this batch, and the rest for another 5L batch next weekend or shortly after.

Also reckon I'll add a small amount of strong tea, maybe one teabag's worth.

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. I'm just going to bottle this batch in sanitised sparkling water bottles - keep things easy for the first time!

parttime

I'm just going to bottle this batch in sanitised sparkling water bottles - keep things easy for the first time!

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.