First cider - cooking apples, AJ, and Wilko Gervin Ale Yeast

[gallagtara]

I've made my first brew! Here's what I did:

Sterilised everything with steriliser first.

1.75 litres of apple juice from the cookers
2 litres of Waitrose essential apple juice
half pint of tapwater
50g light brown sugar
2-3 tablespoons honey
2/3rds of a crushed campden tablet

I stuck this all in a 5 litre PET Thursday night, and next day added about 8g of the Wilko Gervin Ale Yeast (kept a little back from some more ginger beer)

Yesterday morning not much activity, but got back this afternoon and it's bubbling away out of the airlock - and it STINKS. Rotten egg, very sulphuric.

I'm trying not to panic - do you think it'll be okay? I thought the Campden tablet would avoid any nasties, so am assuming this is just yeast byproducts. Will the sulphur smell go away?

 

[LeithR]

Campden tablets in for 24hrs before you pitch the yeast is exactly the right thing to do. The smell will subside in time, it may take a long while just be patient.

Sulphur smell will go away in time - you have to "Ride the wave" it sounds like it is going well let it do its thing and complete its fermentation, take the odd hydrometer reading during the latter stages of fermentation, they should be around 1.010 or even lower. It may take its time.

Once the gravity readings are consistent over 3/4 days then its ready to bottle. Prime it with 5g/L sugar into the bottles, keep it warm for a week then put it away in the cool for a while (4 weeks or so) - this will give it a bit of fizz then once its clear its ready to drink.

Best of luck with it. :thumb:Campden tablets in for 24hrs before you pitch the yeast is exactly the right thing to do. The smell will subside in time, it may take a long while just be patient.

 

[oldbloke]

It's fine, plenty of sulphur compounds involved in brewing, they all get driven off.
Some of the sulphur dioxide from the Campden may have reacted with something else to give a bit of hydrogen sulphide.
It'll soon be gone.

 

[gallagtara]

Hi guys, my cider has stopped bubbling out of the airlock about 4 days ago, and right now it looks like this, though this was a day or two ago and now the foam on top has dispersed even more.

When should I siphon it off into another container to get rid of the precipitate at the bottom? And then how long until I bottle it? Is bottling in plastic bottles okay?

Also, how long until it's remotely drinkable? Right now it looks and smells disgusting, still very strongly of rotten eggs. I'm a bit disappointed by this as what I wanted was something tasty and boozy that'd be ready in a week or two, but this stuff doesn't seem like it'll be ready for months if it needs to get rid of that sulphury stink.

Think I may just grab some juice and make a turbo cider in the meantime while I wait for this stuff to settle down - if I want to avoid the sulphur stink on the TC should I not bother with the campden tablet? Or would this not likely make any difference?

Ta for the help!

 

[oldbloke]

_nothing_ is ready in 2 weeks.
Most ciders made from supermarket juice will clear naturally in between 10 and 20 days, then you bottle. With your cookers and the honey, it might never be completely clear, but when it gets a kind of shine to it when the light's behind it, that's done. After the first couple of times it's easy to recognise. Or of course you could use a hydrometer, cider should get down below 1005.
Try giving it a good shake to get it to give up some more of that sulphurous gas. Maybe rack it (siphon from one vessel to another, mainly to lose the crud on the bottom, but in this case a lot of gas will come out during the transfer)
Once bottled (1tsp/pint priming sugar), minimum sensible conditioning time is 2 weeks warm 2 weeks cold. The warm bit lets the yeast turn the priming sugar to gas, the cool bit gets the gas absorbed into the cider to make it fizzy. But the longer you can leave it the better it'll taste. Plastic bottles are OK.

 

[Crastney]

I believe that the eggy sulphurous smell will be 'solved' by adding yeast nutrient - this will help the fermentation along to finish quicker too.

or you could accept that it smells, and leave it alone till it's finished - the smell will go away eventually.
it can be avoided in future by adding yeast nutrient to the initial list of ingredients.

Turbo cider isn't any quicker.

the honey will take longer to ferment, just because it is longer chain molecule sugars of various types - again yeast nutrient would have helped speed this up.

 

[gallagtara]

Ah - I'd read about marmite being a yeast nutrient, so added a teaspoon of that... I'll try and grab hold of some proper yeast nutrient and hope that helps.

I think a contributing factor might be my house is cold, particularly where the cider currently lives, in the bathroom - at the min we just have the heating on for an hour or so in the morning, are getting away with avoiding turning on the heating in the evening so far (helped by the S/E coast location), though not sure for how much longer that'll last!

I may move it up to a sunny spot on the kitchen windowsill, help it get a bit more warmth. Think that'll help?

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

the honey will take longer to ferment, just because it is longer chain molecule sugars of various types - again yeast nutrient would have helped speed this up.

Honey is a solution of glucose (AKA dextrose) and sucrose in water. Glucose and fructose are monosaccharides, the most basic form of carbohydrate, which makes them the most readily-absorbed energy sources: no digestion is needed. This is why dextrose is sometimes preferred for use in brewing. The table sugar normally used in wine making is a disaccharide, sucrose. Disaccharides are is formed by two monosaccharide molecules, in this case glucose and fructose. Yeast can't use sucrose directly, it has to be broken down into glucose and fructose first.

So honey is actually a better source of fermentables than table sugar, comparable to pure dextrose or fructose. The reason honey slows fermentation has nothing to do with the type of sugar it contains; it is due to natural antiseptic and antibacterial chemicals (such as hydrogen peroxide) it contains.

 

[Crastney]

ah - thank you very much Tim. very informative, and I've learnt something new. I apologise for my previous misleading post.

it does make sense that it has antibacterials in it - it's often said that honey is the only natural food product that will never go off.

 

[Tim_Crowhurst]

Historically honey was frequently used in medicine for its antiseptic qualities. A poultice used on wounds during the Civil War was made from honey and oats, for example.