BrightBrew
Active Member
Hi,
I am very new to brewing so to get myself into the swing of things and understand the whole process I opted to try my hand at some Turbo Cider, as it seemed the most straightforward. However, I would love some advice on what I have done so far.
After lots of searching about I found a simple recipe I was comfortable with (basically apple juice, sugar, pectolase and yeast). I did everything I supposed to do (i.e. sterilise, take sg etc) and left it in a demijohn to ferment. After about 48 hours there was a good inch of froth on the top but very little action through the airlock. So being very careful I swirled it around and mixed in all the froth and now its been going great guns for 3 or 4 days and just starting to slow down. Is this normal? My first instinct was that maybe the froth was suspending some of the yeast and preventing it from doing it's job, and by mixing it I allowed it to get back into the juice......crazy idea?
I will be leaving it for about another week until fermentation stops and then will transfer to another demijohn, leave for 24 hours to settle again and then bottle. I have got quite a few 500ml Crabbys Ginger Beer bottles which i'll be looking to use. Presumably these will be able to take the pressure? I also bought some coopers priming sugar drop things, basically tablets of priming sugar, to make life easier. Does anyone have any experience of using them and would you have any advice other than just put one in each bottle?
Furthermore I read somewhere that if you use champagne yeast (as I have) then you should reduce the amount of priming sugar you use as the champagne yeast will leave the cider slightly carbonated anyway. I cannot get my head round this so advice would be much appreciated :hmm:
Apologies for all the questions, but I feel it's best to ask and get it right first time than bundle on and ruin my first batch (I don't want to be put off on my first try).
Thanks :thumb:
I am very new to brewing so to get myself into the swing of things and understand the whole process I opted to try my hand at some Turbo Cider, as it seemed the most straightforward. However, I would love some advice on what I have done so far.
After lots of searching about I found a simple recipe I was comfortable with (basically apple juice, sugar, pectolase and yeast). I did everything I supposed to do (i.e. sterilise, take sg etc) and left it in a demijohn to ferment. After about 48 hours there was a good inch of froth on the top but very little action through the airlock. So being very careful I swirled it around and mixed in all the froth and now its been going great guns for 3 or 4 days and just starting to slow down. Is this normal? My first instinct was that maybe the froth was suspending some of the yeast and preventing it from doing it's job, and by mixing it I allowed it to get back into the juice......crazy idea?
I will be leaving it for about another week until fermentation stops and then will transfer to another demijohn, leave for 24 hours to settle again and then bottle. I have got quite a few 500ml Crabbys Ginger Beer bottles which i'll be looking to use. Presumably these will be able to take the pressure? I also bought some coopers priming sugar drop things, basically tablets of priming sugar, to make life easier. Does anyone have any experience of using them and would you have any advice other than just put one in each bottle?
Furthermore I read somewhere that if you use champagne yeast (as I have) then you should reduce the amount of priming sugar you use as the champagne yeast will leave the cider slightly carbonated anyway. I cannot get my head round this so advice would be much appreciated :hmm:
Apologies for all the questions, but I feel it's best to ask and get it right first time than bundle on and ruin my first batch (I don't want to be put off on my first try).
Thanks :thumb:
