Afternoon all,
Negligent of me not to have put this up before now, but here's my take on a straightforward 25L Apple Turbo Cider...
Give me a shout if I'm missed any bits out or if anything isn't clear, I knocked it up quite quickly !
It doesn't paste that well into the new thread window, but there is a Word version of the below on OneDrive using the link below
Recipe for 25L cider.docx
Recipe for 25L Classic Apple TC (5.35% abv)
These are not hard and fast rules, but a bit of a guideline and what I have done before
Ingredient
20L Asda Smart price AJ (or any supermarket apple juice made from 100% Apple juice/apple juice from concentrate) so long as no other added ingredients)
1L strong tea (regular Tetley, 5 bags stewed for 15 mins)
5tsp Pectolase
325g sugar (ordinary tate & lyle granulated is fine) for priming
Yeast for 25L (I use cider yeast with sweetener E950 from ebay, but you can use any cider yeast, but without sweetener, may make the cider quite dry/sharp without back-sweetening
Kit
27/30L Fermenting vessel with stick on thermometer strip preferably
Second FV for priming (see priming section)
Long spoon
Hydrometer
Auto-siphon
Bottling wand, to connect to auto-siphon
Bottles (I use a mixture of 500ml PET plastic and glass swingtop bottles)
Method
Thoroughly clean and sanitise FV, spoons, and hydrometer
Pour in apple juice (best at room temp)
Pour in stewed tea (take out the bags ;-) )
Dissolve pectolase in ý cup warm water and tip this in
Top up with tap water to 25L
You want to aim for a starting temp around 20 degrees C, a little colder is OK, but will take a bit longer to get started. Warmer is OK up to about 25 degrees
Sprinkle yeast on top, put lid on (with airlock if thatââ¬â¢s the kind of FV youââ¬â¢re using)
Put in a warm place, ideal temp for fermentation is between 18-24 degrees
Day 10
At a temperature of around 22 degrees, your TC could be finished fermenting in as little as a week, but to make sure, give it at least 10 days before taking an SG reading
When finished fermenting, TC should have an SG reading of around 1.000 donââ¬â¢t move on to the next step if is above that
Priming and bottling (making it fizzy)
2 ways of doing this:-
Batch priming (My preferred method)
Although this needs a second sanitized FV to siphon (rack) the TC into and add priming solution, I find it much easier in the long run, and avoids extra time/mess trying to add a teaspoon of sugar (or coopers carb drops) into 50 bottles !
Dissolve 325g sugar in some hot tap water (just enough to get it to dissolve and be pourable
Siphon cider from primary FV to secondary, add priming sugar
Give it a good swirl/stir to mix in the sugar solution
Move FV to somewhere suitable for bottling (FV should be above the height of where you are bottling)
Attach the bottling wand to the autosiphon tube and immediately bottle your cider
Put bottled cider somewhere warm (ca 20deg) for at least a week to clear, and carb up. Tip. Using at least some plastic (PET) bottles will allow you to feel how the card process is going by squeezing the bottles, the y will get firmer as the co2 is produced.
Once they bottles have completely cleared, they will be pretty much ready to drink, so chill one and try it out
They will get better with a few more weeks in a cooler storage place, to condition a little.
Bottle priming
Using the autosiphon and bottling wand, fill each of your bottles with cider
Add a heaped teaspoonful of sugar to each 500ml bottle (or 2 x Coopers carb drops, get these on web or in home brew shop)
Put lid on and turn bottle upside down and back up again, to mix
Put bottled cider somewhere warm (ca 20deg) for at least a week to clear, and carb up. Tip. Using at least some plastic (PET) bottles will allow you to feel how the card process is going by squeezing the bottles, the y will get firmer as the co2 is produced.
Once they bottles have completely cleared, they will be pretty much ready to drink, so chill one and try it out
They will get better with a few more weeks in a cooler storage place, to condition a little.
Chilling/Pouring
This stuff is definitely best served icy cold, so give it a good overnight in the fridge if you can. I also like my cider quite fizzy, so unchilled it will tend to fizz up when I open a bottle, but it doesnt do this when its cold
After clearing, there will be some sediment in the bottom of the bottle, so for a nice clear glass, you want to avoid glugging the cider when pouring. So pour it slowly keeping the bottle just above horizontal, and youll see when the cloudy sediment starts to make its way to the top of the bottle, at which point you can stop pouring and leave the remaining few ml of liquid to get chucked (or pour it all in if you like it cloudy !)
