Turbo Cider Help

[plumpton]

Ok so I tried to make a turbo cider.....

4l 100% Apple Juice
1l 100% Apple, grape and Raspberry Juice
one strong cup of tea (no Milk )

some pectolase and some stabiliser.

No Sugar


its fairly young but it is quite bad to taste..its not off its clear as anything.

Adding half pint of Lemonade is rather great but not what id hoped...any ideas for my next attempt?

:drink:

 

[calumscott]

How old is it?

If you fermented it down until it stopped then bottled it and tasted it as soon as it cleared then you'll get something pretty rank.

Cider needs time, lots of time, lots and lots of time to turn into something nice. If you're lucky you'll even get a malolactic fermentation happening which will turn it into something like the very best from thatchers or westons.

I've only made one batch so far. 23l of cheapo apple juice, 5 tsp pectolase, 5 tsp tannin, 5 tsp malic acid and a packet of youngs cider yeast. About three weeks in primary and three months in a secondary under airlock. Was bottled in late May and it was pretty good and it's been getting steadily better from there.

The key things are:

- tannin (which you'll have got from the tea) - maybe try just a pure wine tannin for less tea flavour?
- pectolase which seems to have done its job if it's nice and clear
- malic acid, juice apples are generally too sweet for punchy cider, malic acid gives more tangy kick and more for lactobacilus to work on if you can get it going
- time, time allows the yeast to remove some partial fermentation by-products. It also allows, if the lactobacillus bacterium has got in, time for the malolactic fermentation which converts the malic acid to lactic acid which is far less "acid" to the taste and also results in some weird esters which give you that vintage cider buttery taste and feel. Even if you don't get a malolactic fermentation, time lets your cider "just get better".
- Bulk aging. Where beer and wine will happy condition or age in the bottle, the bigger the volume with cider the better. Don't ask me why because I don't know but that's the way westons and thatchers have been doing it for decades or centuries and I can't argue with that...

Anyway, all that aside, when you say "bad" can you describe "bad"? What does "bad" remind you of?

 

[plumpton]

Excellent response thanks...

In regards to your questions....

It fermented out in demijohn without a doubt no airlock action and steady Hydro readings.

I transferred to secondary Demi john and fined it with good results.

having only made a 5L demi john i couldnt really have a mass conditioning like you describe.

The Cider is silly young.... Bottled 8 days ago.

Looks Clear as a whistle

The taste is like very very dry and not very sweet at all.....the apple flavour seems none existent and the very small grape flavour from the 1l of Raspberry apple and grape juice seems predominant.

Appreciate you taking thetime to respond so constructively... i am really hoping to geta great turbo to brew for many a year, hopefully you can help me out.

I would appreciate what you do to get a decent turbo cider and the associated recipe along with times for each stage e.g. FV1, FV2 and Conditioning.

Kind regards

:

 

[oldbloke]

The Cider is silly young.... Bottled 8 days ago.

Needs 2 more weeks, absolute minimum.

I've gone off the idea of adding grape to ciders.
I think maybe if you didn't have the grape and raspberry in there the apple flavour would be more noticable.

 

[plumpton]

I am inclined to agree on the grape one!

Raspberry juice next time or maybe blackcurrant or something but not grape....Very dry

 

[oldbloke]

Well, I like dry, but I'm not convinced by grape.
I've had good results with cranberry, and the pomegranite one that's ready this weekend promised to be good out of the syphon.
Mind you that's made with concentrate rather than juice, so it has more apple in it.

 

[plumpton]

I also use Concentrate (I am too tight to pay £1 a carton) :thumb:

 

[oldbloke]

Ah, I meant I used actual concentrate, not "juice from concentrate". The concentrate I used means the TC ends up costing a bit more than if I just used cheap AJ, but it does have more apple in it, and it's easier than trying to simmer off some of the water from a cheap juice. I've used a lot of "from concentrate" juice in the past, but never yet a not-from-concentrate juice. I should investigate the non-concentrate juices, it might be possible to get more apple without also upping the ABV.

 

[TRXnMe]

How long did you leave it to age?

In FV1 after bubbling had stopped and in FV2 after you'd added the finings?

My first TC is just going into bottles now, and I made it a few weeks after joining this site (about 6 months back) as the consensus appeared to be patiencec over all for cider brewing :)

It tastes quite dry, not surprising really, so I'll add sweetner, or sugar, to the cider when I pour it for drinking :)

I only brew TC in dem, in johns lengths, so 'bulk' aging isn't an option to me, but aging is :)

 

[Gayle]

Grape juice can make a cider very dry, as I discovered by accident when using a "pomegranate" juice that turned out to be mostly grape juice and about 1% pomegranate juice. Not as tasty as I'd like! Lidl have been doing some "not from concentrate" juices in their fridges, I got a few apple, pear and raspberry cartons, which are high in fruit juices (and not just apple, beware that many mixed fruit juices are mainly apple or grape, or even just water!) They do an apple, pear and blaccurrant juice as well, and I might try that next time I'm there.

Even a 5l batch can benefit from long periods of maturation under airlock. I avoided doing this as a homebrewing book told me not to leave any brew in a plastic FV for more than a week or two, but have since ignored that idea and now my cider sit in plastic FV's for as long as it takes til they clear, plus a month or so, sometimes they've needed an extra racking due to the sediment at the bottom. I put a label on the bottles with the date they were bottled and try not to drink them (or at least not all of them) for at least a month after that!