Low Alcohol Cider Help

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Joined
Jan 13, 2016
Messages
8,520
Reaction score
5,496
Location
Sleaford - Lincolnshire
No.1 Son has decided to visit us for a week at Christmas ... :thumb:

... but he only drinks expensive wine or low alcohol cider. (I blame his Mum!) :doh:

So, to keep him away from my wine, I would be much obliged if someone could suggest a nice easy recipe for 20 litres of low alcohol cider.

Many thanks in anticipation. :thumb: :thumb:
 
Morning matey

What sort of % do you consider to be 'low' ?

If you're making with supermarket AJ then the only way is to have a reasonable quantity of water in it (the sugar content of the juice will bring a 100% AJ brew to round about 6%)

I can work it out for you if you let me know... also, is it just a straight apple cider you're thinking of making ?

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
Just had a quick look, in order to keep abv around 3.5%, you'd need to use half AJ, half water, which might come out a bit light in flavour, but I've made a strawberry & lime that was just 60% AJ (but with strawberry syrup, which pumped up the abv a fair bit) and it still tasted good


you can use the file below to adjust the quantity of AJ and see how it affects the abv
https://1drv.ms/x/s!AqD9OOcGhwesq3SoIFLAO2zQCiZh
 
Thanks for that.

I've not got over the doorstep today due to rain so everything still in the planning stage.

Reckon I'll shoot for +/- 3% ABV.

Plan "A" is therefore:

o 10 litres of AJ from Lidl,

o 500ml of pomegranate syrup to give it that bit of flavour and colour,

o Adjust the SG with water to 1.045 which should give a +/- 4.5% ABV if fermented down to 1.010.

o Check the SG on a daily basis.

o Stop fermentation around SG 1.035 at +/- 3.25% with a Stabiliser.

o Syphon off into a keg, carbonate with CO2 and allow to clear.

Hopefully, this will leave me with a sweet rose coloured cider at just over 3% with a hint of pomegranate flavour just in time for Christmas.

Sound reasonable? :thumb:
 
Good call, I've not yet branched into forced carbonation, so hadn't thought about stopping fermentation early....

That will work nicely then I reckon 😀

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
If you're stopping the fermentation then surely there's no need to water it down? Give it full appleiness [emoji1]

And remember: cider normally ferments out to nearer 1.000, if you're calculating
 
True that, depends on how sugary the pom syrup is I suppose

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
I stopped a wow at 1.030 and it was cloying, which surprised me as sweet wines like Sauternes can be as high as 1.060. Although I didn't test it, I put this down to balancing the sweetness with acidity. If yours is too sweet at 1.035 you could add some acid to counteract it, which is what I should have done.
 
Many thanks for the responses. :thumb:

Plan B is now:

o 15 litres of AJ from Lidl,

o 500ml of pomegranate syrup to give it that bit of flavour and colour,

o Two "Jiffy Lemons" to give it a bit of a bite. (Couple left over from summer tipple of "G&T with a dash of lemon".)

o Check the SG on a daily basis.

o Stop fermentation with a Stabiliser at whatever SG produces an ABV of +/- 3%.

o Syphon off into a keg, carbonate with CO2 and allow to clear.

Should be underway later today so I will keep everyone informed of progress.

Again, many thanks for comments. :thumb:
 
Many thanks for the responses. :thumb:

Plan B is now:

o 15 litres of AJ from Lidl,

o 500ml of pomegranate syrup to give it that bit of flavour and colour,

o Two "Jiffy Lemons" to give it a bit of a bite. (Couple left over from summer tipple of "G&T with a dash of lemon".)

o Check the SG on a daily basis.

o Stop fermentation with a Stabiliser at whatever SG produces an ABV of +/- 3%.

o Syphon off into a keg, carbonate with CO2 and allow to clear.

Should be underway later today so I will keep everyone informed of progress.

Again, many thanks for comments. :thumb:

Saw a video where they let ferment out then backsweeten with wine conditioner and added some taste back by using the syrup from fractional freezing apple juice.
 
Saw a video where they let ferment out then backsweeten with wine conditioner and added some taste back by using the syrup from fractional freezing apple juice.

Thanks for that. :thumb::thumb:

I may consider it when I'm doing a cider for myself but for this batch I particularly want low alcohol.

The problem would be controlling the ABV to the desired +/-3% due to the fluctuation of OG and FG if I let it ferment out.

Again, thanks for the tip and I will keep it in mind for the future when I'm brewing for myself rather than No.1 Son. :thumb: :thumb:
 
If you're stopping the fermentation then surely there's no need to water it down? Give it full appleiness [emoji1]

And remember: cider normally ferments out to nearer 1.000, if you're calculating

agreed, iv had it just lower but that was left for quite some time and with champange yeast
 
heres aother thought - do as the commercial brews do and just some higher strength cider ( they tend to make it to 14%) and then water it down - perhaps add some gylcerol for mouth feel and dont forget to make a big strong tea before hand (to add as ) to make up for the missing tannns - in a 20+ litre batch of cider a litre of stew tea made with 5 tea bas will do it , keep stirring every cople mins then squeee them bags before pouring in
 
Many thanks for the responses. :thumb:

Plan B is now:

o 15 litres of AJ from Lidl,

o 500ml of pomegranate syrup to give it that bit of flavour and colour,

o Two "Jiffy Lemons" to give it a bit of a bite. (Couple left over from summer tipple of "G&T with a dash of lemon".)

o Check the SG on a daily basis.

o Stop fermentation with a Stabiliser at whatever SG produces an ABV of +/- 3%.

o Syphon off into a keg, carbonate with CO2 and allow to clear.

Should be underway later today so I will keep everyone informed of progress.

Again, many thanks for comments. :thumb:

Sounds good, but be careful with the Jif lemons. They have E223 in them, which is the code for sodium metabisulphite.
 
I have now pitched the yeast into Plan C - without the Jif Lemons!

Apart from the above, when I read the instructions on the Stabiliser it recommended letting everything ferment out before adding it to the brew, so the plan has been modified as follows:

o Nine litres of Apple Juice (Lidl "Simply" brand).

o 750ml of Grenadine.

o Cup of stewed tea (6 bags in .5 litre of boiling water for 10 minutes).

o Teaspoon of Pectolase.

o Two teaspoons of Wilco Express Wine Yeast Compound.

The OG is 1.067 which should give +/- 7.5% ABV when fermented to a FG of 1.010.

When fermented, I intend to stabilise the brew and then reduce the ABV to +/-3% by increasing the volume with a mixture of water, apple juice and Jif Lemon with frequent taste testing to try and get something drinkable at +/-23 litres.

Water, AJ and Jif Lemon are all at zero ABV so 10 litres of cider at 7.5% will require an additional 13 litres to drop the ABV of the mixture to 3.25%.

I will then carbonate the finished cider in the keg.

There are still plenty of things that can go wrong even if it ferments out okay; and that's brewing folks! :lol:

Many thanks for the hints and advice. :thumb: :thumb:

I will keep you posted on progress.
 
Sounds good buddy, you could always have chucked in some fresh lemon juice at this stage 😊

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk
 
Sounds good buddy, you could always have chucked in some fresh lemon juice at this stage 😊

Sent from my SM-G920F using Tapatalk

Just warm and dry enough in the garage to nip out and get the brew on. :thumb: :thumb:

SWMBO went for a walk in the mist and rain today. :thumb: :thumb:

Had I asked her to carry back a bag of lemons I'm not saying she wouldn't have done it ...

... but I do know where she would have shoved them! :whistle: :whistle:

Jif Lemon Juice will do nicely thank-you! :lol: :lol:
 
I have now pitched the yeast into Plan C - without the Jif Lemons!

Apart from the above, when I read the instructions on the Stabiliser it recommended letting everything ferment out before adding it to the brew, so the plan has been modified as follows:

o Nine litres of Apple Juice (Lidl "Simply" brand).

o 750ml of Grenadine.

o Cup of stewed tea (6 bags in .5 litre of boiling water for 10 minutes).

o Teaspoon of Pectolase.

o Two teaspoons of Wilco Express Wine Yeast Compound.

The OG is 1.067 which should give +/- 7.5% ABV when fermented to a FG of 1.010.

When fermented, I intend to stabilise the brew and then reduce the ABV to +/-3% by increasing the volume with a mixture of water, apple juice and Jif Lemon with frequent taste testing to try and get something drinkable at +/-23 litres.

Water, AJ and Jif Lemon are all at zero ABV so 10 litres of cider at 7.5% will require an additional 13 litres to drop the ABV of the mixture to 3.25%.

I will then carbonate the finished cider in the keg.

There are still plenty of things that can go wrong even if it ferments out okay; and that's brewing folks! :lol:

Many thanks for the hints and advice. :thumb: :thumb:

I will keep you posted on progress.

Roll on a month and that duty free Grenadine will become a bottle of squash in your next batch :lol:

Some lemon bottle juice has sorbate in, some do, probably wont make any difference in cider though.
 
Back
Top