Micro batch of cider

The Homebrew Forum

Help Support The Homebrew Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

bbslaw

Active Member
Joined
Aug 21, 2013
Messages
63
Reaction score
2
Location
York
We were given a carrier bag full of apples from the in-laws and they're not eaters and there's too many to cook with, so I was thinking of trying to make cider. But this will be a micro, tiny, wee batch. So I don't want to buy any new equipment.

Was thinking of scratting them in the kitchen blender. Will this kill it, or should it be OK for a few small batches?

Then pressing - I don't have a jack or any way to knock up a pressing frame, so was just thinking of wrapping the pulp in a muslin and then squeezing it between two biscuit boxes (family circle plastic types) - bottom one with a small hole in it to let the juice out, top one weighed down with dumbells or tin cans or anything else I can find. Do you think this will work, or will I need much more pressure to get the juice out?

If I get juice out, I was then planning to add a campden tablet, then cider yeast, rack off after fermentation, mature and bottle.

Is this all too simple? Please bear in mind it's not worth me getting too involved for such a small amount of apples, but if I can get a few litres of drinkable cider in the spring, I'll be very happy.
 
I live just down the road from you - I have a press you can use at my house.

If you feel so inclined I would accept a gift of 5 new air-traps (50p each) to help me with my brewing free beer for the disabled.

KevinH
 
A bucket and a lump of wood would be better than your blender just mash 'em up.

How about a press you can stand on? Put the mushed up apples in an old pillowcase between 2 sheets of ply or planks with a few holes in the bottom one, all stood in a tray to catch the juice. Don't know about you but I know I'm a lot heavier than any weights/cans - I don't think you'll get enough pressure from a few heavy things
 
Do you know what juicer that is, and how much it might cost, please?
I did look but there's no such details within the link/website.
 
From watching the youtube video they are Breville, not sure which model though. Any juicer would do, just dont run the motor for more than three minutes without 5 minutes to cool down, or you might overheat the motor.

I keep seeing these guys, they've gone viral. America, New Zealand and on the East Midlands news!
 
Yes, I hadn't thought of that, thanks. I'm guessing it'll be no good for the amount of work I'd put one through. Thanks for your time to reply. :cheers:
 
Thanks for your suggestions; I'll see how I get on.
Thanks for your kind offer Kevin, but I'd like to try and 'do it myself'
 
So it's all done. Took most of the day, but 9kg of apples whizzed in the kitchen blender, then pressed in a muslin bag between chopping boards on a tray yielded around 5l of juice. Added a stewed cup of tea for tannin. OG was only 1.034 so added 250g of brewer's sugar in 500ml of boiling water to take it up to 1.045. I added sodium metabisulphate - 10ml of a solution containing 1tsp in 100ml and will leave it for 48 hours before pitching yeast. I've got white wine yeast and ale yeast (both Young's from the hardware shop) to choose from - was thinking of using the white wine yeast. Any thoughts?
I reckon the yield was pretty poor and I could probably have got loads more juice out, but I'm quite happy overall - if this works well I'll buy a proper scratter and press next year and go large! :grin:
 
Rehydrated and pitched the wine yeast today. The juice is an 'interesting' cloudy orange, but smelt appley, so it should be OK. Fingers crossed now...
 
sounds like a good approach taken for the small amount that you had.
I've used G-Clamps either side of a couple of chopping boards before now as a press, but get more pressure if I stood them in a tray and stood on it - not sure of the hygiene issues standing on the chopping board though...
I don't know if you did, but I'd have at least quartered the apples first to give the blender less work, and when I've used a juicer I always press the left over pulp as well anyway.

good luck with the rest of the process.
 
Thanks for your advice so far. So I've actually got more like 6.5 litres of cider still bubbling away in the (23l) FV. It seems to be doing fine. I was planning on racking it off to another 23l FV to mature for a few weeks before bottling, but having read a few other threads on here I'm now concerned about the amount of headspace this will leave. Problem is, there's too much to put in 1 5l demi-john/carboy, and if I spread it across two, then I'd have the same headspace issue. Will it be OK in a 23l FV all together? Does anyone know of a 6-7l vessel I could use, or am I overthinking this? Cheers
 
you can get 1 litre Demi John style bottles of cider in the shops - buy a few of these, and a 1 gal DJ, and Bob's your mother's brother.
or you can use 1 litre squash bottles, or 2 litre pop bottles. I have a 3 litre bottle from when someone was doing 3 litres for the price of 2 special offer.
the only realy issue is fitting an airlock, and there are other ways of doing this - clingfilm with a pin hole, balloon, siphon tubing into water, you just need to make a hole in a well fitting lid, or make a normal bung with hole smaller somehow.
Anything is possible.
 
Thanks for your suggestions. Transferred it to one 5l bottle and one 1l bottle, and stored in the cool cupboard under the stairs. Had a cheeky taste and it was surprisingly good! Quite sour and dry, but really pleasant. Should be 6% according to my calculations. Was planning to let it mature for a month and then bottle it, so that I could crack the first one at Christmas. Or is this too short? I've read plenty on here about letting cider sit for 6 months, but I'm not sure I can wait that long.
Here are some photos from the process:
P1050007_zps48e4cb2b.jpg

P1050008_zps7ce09801.jpg

P1050009_zps38d1bafd.jpg

P1050203_zpsd5f8e3f5.jpg
 
Cheers! It's been sitting now for just over 2 weeks and shows very little sign of clearing. Is it ever likely to?
I didn't add pectolase or finings or anything, so am I destined to have cloudy cider? Don't mind that... more nutrients!
I've now got it sitting on the cold conservatory floor to see if that helps clearing. I may bottle just the 1l bottle in time for Christmas and the leave the 5l bottle to mature for a bit longer
 
Pectolase would probably help maybe even some geletine to fine it (not suree if thats just a beer thing, I'm only on my second abtch), I have a batch made from apples that benefited from it. Probably should bottle that soon actually and forget about it. Although I might backsweeten as its remarkably dry.
 
I'm new so don't take anything as gospel.

I have made 2 DJ of cider and added nutrient and pectolase to mine but did not add met to kill the yeast - just added a fairly large dose of cider yeast (1/2 packet per DJ). After 2 weeks it was pretty much fully fermented but still very cloudy like yours. It has now pretty much dropped clear with about 1" sediment. Time to rack off I think but I intend to leave it in the DJs to mature until spring time. I also had 1l left over and have put that in a milk carton to ferment with natural yeast only (no nutrients or pectolase) - 1 month on and that is still slowly bubbling away and has only just started to clear at all so I don't think the clearing is too much of an issue - just give it time.

You could always keep yours to mature and put on a batch of turbo cider. I started a 23 l batch on Sunday evening and it had started to bubble slowly in 1 hour. By Tuesday it was bubbling like mad and still is (several bubbles per second) so should ferment out pretty quickly. The colour has already lightened up to a similar colour to yours. Should easily be ready for Christmas even with a bit of maturing.

Good luck with your batch :cheers:

Dave
 
Thanks for the advice everybody. After over a month in the secondary bottles it hadn't cleared any further than the original photo. So I whacked in some pectolase, and what a transformation! Went clear overnight and a beautiful golden colour.
IMAG0194_zpsb34243a2.jpg

Bottled it yesterday and got 9 500ml bottles and 3 330ml bottles. So pretty pleased with the yield overall. Primed about half with some brewer's sugar and left the other half still.
P1050255crop_zps967de526.jpg

Gonna crack the first one on Christmas day. But the mouthfuls I got when siphoning were encouraging! Can't wait! :D
 
Back
Top