Semi-Turbo Cider!

Hey guys,

Here's my plan.

To buy a cheap juicer from tesco/asda.
Buy 16lbs/8kg of value/smartprice apples. (Should come to £5ish)
Juice those badboys up, 8kg should hopefully make a gallon after doing some research.
Add enough sugar to bring to 1.064ish (like the standard turbo cider)
Add some cider yeast.
Stop it at the same(ish) point as with my regular turbo cider, about 1.016-1.020.

If it turns out completely awesome, then you've got 5 gallons of a semi-turbo cider for around £25 a pop. Which is about £10 more than buying the juice.

I'm only doing the 1 gallon at first, just to see how it goes.

I'm gonna go to Tesco/Asda after work to pickup what I need - and if I get all the stuff I'll post how it went!!

Looking forward to this,

:

We have a good juicer but i've yet to find a homebrew use for it. Partly this is because i haven't done a wine that makes it worthwhile to use, and partly because its quite a rough way to treat fruit/veg so you may end up with things in your brew that are better kept out or removed at some stage. Using it for apples tho sounds like it could be just the ticket. You'll probably extend the life of the juicer if you removed skins and cores first, i wouldn't expect a cheap juicer to last long when regularly processing homebrew scale quantities. But it will certainly tell you if investing in a more expensive and robust machine will be worth while. The extra money you spend on something more expensive will also pay dividends on your time because of smart design, not least the amount of time you spend cleaning the filter! Carrots, pears and pineapples may also be good for juicing for homebrew ... what do you think?

Well, I'm hoping I will be pleasantly suprised with a cheap juicer, if its anything like the £3.99 blender I got from ASDA - it'll last a long time! I've had it for 2 years and I use it every day and its still chugging along.

When i get there I may decide to splash out a little more and get a better one - maybe one that takes whole fruit. Who knows.

I'll be using it a lot in the future for brewing I'm sure - so I sont mind spending the little extra to get something thats going to last. Although I may get the cheapiest one there, im a bit strange like that - just depends on how im feeling at the time!

Quite looking forward to it actually - I'll definatly get some pix up - probably in 2 weeks again :lol:

that's basically a proper cider you're planning there mate.

are you planning on pressing the pulp?

Things i would look out for, in no particular order or importance

ease of cleaning especially the filter
the best (most powerful) motor you can afford
filter pore size - smaller the better as little bits of skin, pith, ground up seeds etc are probably not what you want.

i'm sorry if this is all obvious stuff to you, sometimes its easier to overlook the obvious tho

i think the one we have is called a juice lady. At the time we got it i think it was one of the most expensive models that was commonly available. I don't remember how much it was tho. Basically it has a serrated metal plate that spins and you force the fruit/veg onto it. This breaks it up and the juices are spun outwards to a metal mesh filter, the pulp is separated and removed which means it can be used continuously for a long time. The down side is that the filter is not quick to clean but all particulates do come off (toothbrush works well). It makes great juice tho, and very quickly!

If i was to get REALLY UBER serious then i would get a juicer that squeezes the fruit, but i think they are very expensive. You'll see those types at juicing stalls tho i'm sure there will be domestic rather than commercial models available.

i hope this helps, you've got me quite curious about getting ours out again despite my concerns about persistent hazes. Having said that its the taste that is most important

happy juicing

haze in cider? bah! just call it scrumpy :lol:

Damn, it took me near as damn it 2 hours to juice all those apples. I'll get some pics up at some point!

Made ALMOST a gallon, was thinking about topping it up with some apple juice but, because its so close to a gallon I'll keep it as it is.

What do you reckon I should do now? Should I add a campden tablet and leave it 24/48hrs before adding the yeast? To kill off any yeast present in the must?

Also - what do you reckon I should do when fermenting?? Should I add sugar? Let it go all the way, stop it at any point?

... What im trying to say is.. ..

Tell me what to do next :lol: !

sounds to me like you know what you wanna do :lol: ... i say go with your gut!

but if you really want advice, campden would be the safe option... but then again... how about flying by the seat of your pants and going for it! (ingredients too) there's more reward from greater risks

Ooooohhhh brewstew, i think i shall do it

The gravity is 1.046ish. Reckon I should add any sugar?

Attenuation calculator says 4% possiblity with 1.046

and to add, you could treat it like a TC... you know what you like gravity and taste wise when it comes to sugar additions... this is basically unconcentrated apple juice.

or you could try something new... granted you just spent two hours mashing all those apples.... so it's your choice.

for me i usually only tweak one or two things at a time, to understand how it affects the final result... to a point... then i get bored/go mental and try something crazy! haha. most have worked... some have not... my last ginger beer was ****... and i had to clean the lines 6 times to get the ginger flavour out.

the first taste of a completely new "risked it all" type brew is always exciting for me... have a read of my Winter Sunrise brewday. i risked 20kg of grain, 9 hours of my day and god knows what else... missed my mash temperature by ALOT!... but oh that first taste.... i cant wait to get it on the bar and drink it now

Right...

I added 250g of sugar which brort it up to a nice 1.064.

I think I will treat this as if it was a turbo cider - and replicate what I did with my TC - so then I can have a real comparison (although, i did use youngs cider yeast - so it may not be a fair comparison as i used s04 for the TC)

Although I'm very excited!

When its fermented to around 1.020 - do you reckon I should keep it in glass bottles? Plastic bottles?

As Theres definatly not enough for a corny.

i'd go plastic for your first attempt just incase it decides to ferment so far that the pressure is ultra strong... you dont want exploding glass bottles!

I've just gone and got some pottasium sorbate.

I'm not really sure what I should do in terms of stopping the brew... I'm thinking, if I use potassium sorbate to stop the brew, theres a possible risk of ruining some of the taste, but then when I bottle and "prime" the cider - surely the yeast will be dead and I wont get any fizz :hmm:

But, if I bottle without the pottasium sorbate I may run the risk of bottle explosions (not likely i dont think in plastic bottles), or a further fermentation drying out the cider past the level of sweetness I want.

Hmmmmmm... any advice?

I'm thinking possibly use the pottasium sorbate on half the brew? And leave the brew natural for the other half?

As I understand it, you need yeast for the fizz. Maybe you can think of a way of adding something to kill it after some pressure has built up in the bottle/whatever you're using...
You could use a little cheese cloth (or any kind of cloth (a sock might give new meaning to the word cheese cloth though)) wrap it around a tablet of whatever you want to put in, and wedge it in the neck of the bottle, ensuring that the tablet only has one layer of cloth separating it from the cider. When you think you have enough pressure, turn the bottle upside down and leave it for ages... then when you want to drink - turn it the right way up, and the fizz might even push the cloth out for you! Don't forget to chill it before letting the pressure off - otherwise it goes flat straight away.

The other way to do it would be to ferment it dry, then add a little sugar/apple juice/AJ concentrate and something sweet that the yeast can't ferment, like sweetener or maybe ... is it glycerol i'm thinking of? or glycerine? i don't know... lactose isn't fermentable... you could find a pressure-release bung/cap/something... if you do it in 2L fizzy drinks bottles, you can tell that the pressure is too high because the plastic can deform a lot (they're rated to 1500psi). Also, if you hold the bottle by the cap and flick it, it rings like a bell - the higher the pressure, the longer it rings for. When there's more pressure than you want, let some off by opening the cap a little.

I should say hi. First post and all.
HI!

Disclaimer - I've never made anything that tasted particularly good... haven't made much at all.

Fermenting - cider, but it's probably sparkling apple wine really - it might get as high as 18% 'cause I used champagne yeast... :)

or just bottle it as usual but dont add priming sugar (there's still alot of sugar left in it if you rack at the AA point like you have been) leave it somewhere at room temperature for about a 3-5 days to continue eating the sugar, then stick it somewhere cold, like outside for a week. the yeast will then drop out and sit at the bottom of the bottle. you'll have clear cider and yeast that wont ferment cos it'll be out of suspension :thumb:

Sounds like a good plan stew! I think I'll do that!

If I rack it at 1.020 - it should go down hopefully a few points but still remain sweet.

Really am looking forward to the results! - I aim to drink one bottle at first, then leave the others in the outhouse to be "forgotten about" for as long as possible :lol:

Any tips on how long a cider will take to mature? And is there a time that is too long to leave it?

the problem with that method is there's no exact science.. it could come out flat as a witches tit (more likely) or foaming everywhere (less likely)

what i would do is drink one every day until it reaches the right carbonation, then as soon as it does... stick it outside and leave it there until you need to drink it, bringing only what you plan on drinking soon back into the warmth, just incase the yeast wakes up again.

it's ready to drink when you think it tastes good basically! it will last longer in the bottle. i find my TC lasts about a month in the keg before the flavour starts to go a bit iffy. never bottle conditioned it so cant tell you how long in a bottle.

Hmmmmmmmmmmm, not sure after that then.

I want this cider to be perfect as its taken a lot of time and a fair bit of money.

I think just adding a teaspoon of sugar to the plastic bottles, then leaving it in a warm place like you said for 3 days - then in the outhouse to cool.

Why does a TC only last a month before going iffy, but the bottles of cider in the shop will last years?

as i said, stuff in bottles last longer i just dont know how much longer cos i've never done it