Scratting and pressing, a game for all the family.

[Bill W]

I got started on my cider this evening. Due to this being a bit of a pants year for apples, I had mostly cookers (chiefly bramleys) a few James grieve eaters and a few kilos of small crab apples.
I had borrowed a friend's 12 litre Vigo press and scratter to try and maximise the juice yield.
It was a slow process on my own, washing, quartering and cutting out the manky bits, then scratting, then pressing.
Fortunately, my daughter and daughter-in-law turned up and they and my wife mucked in and we got a bit of a production line going. My daughter-in-law made a little tik-tok video.
We found that mixing the crab apples in with the quartered apples was a mistake. They passed through the scratter with only a few scars and didn't give up their goodness when pressed. So my daughter took that batch of pomace and pounded it in a bucket with a lump of wood. This, when re-pressed, gave up nearly an extra two pints! After that, she was on pounding duty for the rest of the crab apples.
I was expecting about 6 gallons of juice but only got 4, so I'll top up to 5 gallons with carton juice, which will hopefully make up for the shortage of eaters. Campden tablets crushed and added. I'll add the carton juice and take an OG tomorrow evening before pitching yeast.

Video here:

And another:

 

[An Ankoù]

Looks good. If it were me, I think I'd settle for the 4 gallons and not mix carton juice with it.
I've never thought of using carton juice to make cider, but isn't it pasteurised and with added artificial sweeteners or other nasty things?
I've got a scatter like that and I find I get better extraction by passing the pomace through it three times. The first time is hard, but subsequent passes are relatively easy.
Don't worry if your cider is mouth-puckeringly sharp when it's fermented, it should mellow down over the course of months and be drinkable some time after Easter. That's my experience, at least.

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

Hi Bill. Remember the Shirvynator 3000? I used it for chopping up the apples to a pulp.
Had to clean it up, a bit, before I used it!

 

[Bill W]

Looks good. If it were me, I think I'd settle for the 4 gallons and not mix carton juice with it.
I've never thought of using carton juice to make cider, but isn't it pasteurised and with added artificial sweeteners or other nasty things?
I've got a scatter like that and I find I get better extraction by passing the pomace through it three times. The first time is hard, but subsequent passes are relatively easy.
Don't worry if your cider is mouth-puckeringly sharp when it's fermented, it should mellow down over the course of months and be drinkable some time after Easter. That's my experience, at least.

Having thought about it overnight, I think I'll Ferment the 4 gallons I've got of "Real juice". I can always make a couple of gallons of Turbo cider from carton juice to blend later if it needs it.

Hi Bill. Remember the Shirvynator 3000? I used it for chopping up the apples to a pulp.
Had to clean it up, a bit, before I used it!

Not a bad idea to give it a quick rinse after where it has been! I hope the apple residue doesn't taint your next batch of shirvy.

 

[Bill W]

I've taken an OG of 1.049, which will give an ABV of 6.43% if it hits a FG of 1.000. That's plenty strong enough for me. I've added 1 teaspoon per gallon of nutrient and pitched the yeast. It's the same cider yeast I've used for Turbo cider, so I'm expecting it to be a vigorous fermentation. Probably just as well that I only have 4 gallons in a 5 gallon beer bucket.

Another mate has dropped a sackful of cookers round and is bringing more at the weekend, so it looks like a second batch will be on the cards.

 

[Bill W]

I spent a fair slice of today chopping, scratting and pressing a load more cookers I had been given. Following the example of An Ankou, above, I ran the pomace back through the scratter and re-pressed, which resulted in a reasonable amount of extra juice. In total, I got just over 3.5 gallons of juice, which has had cambden tablets added and will get its dose of cider yeast tomorrow night. I haven't taken an OG yet but will do that prior to starting it.

I did, however, take a gravity reading of my first batch, which is on day 8 of fermentation. It has dropped from 1.049 to 1.005, giving an ABV of 5.76%. It is in the yellow "Bottle" band of the hydrometer but I'll give it a few more days and another reading to be sure. It has cleared quite a lot, smells clean and yeasty and looks encouragingly like cider to me. It will probably taste foul until next spring though.

This is my first go at "real" cider, so I'd appreciate any advice from those who have trodden this path many times before. Should I bottle it as soon as it's done, or would bulk aging be better? Bearing in mind that I prefer fizzy cider, would enough yeast survive bulk aging to do a good job of carbonation when I finally bottle it?