started my first fruit turbo cider, what do I do now?

[skint_golfer]

Righ, here we go on my first ever post....

I started a 5 gallon fruit cider off about 10-12 days ago consisting of 1kg sugar, 15 litres juice (apple and fruit cartons), water to bring volume up to 22L and a packet of youngs cider yeast.

I've had a prety decent ferment that now seems to have slowed/finished but I'm not sure what to do next.....

Please jump in with suggestions as this is my first propper cider brew (kits dont count)...

what I was planning was:

.rack into a clean 5 gallon brew bin with a bubbler
.leave for a further 2 weeks and test gravity to confirm its stopped
.Bottle (with a quarter tea spoon of sugar per bottle)
.leave for 2 weeks then start drinking


so whats the general feeling on my plan and recipe?

cheers folks!

 

[Mark1964]

Hi welcome to the forum, we usually use beer bottles to bottle the cider add 1 teaspoon of sugar per pint. There is not really any need to rack off etc. As long as fermentation has finished all should be ok :thumb:

 

[ScottM]

Righ, here we go on my first ever post....

I started a 5 gallon fruit cider off about 10-12 days ago consisting of 1kg sugar, 15 litres juice (apple and fruit cartons), water to bring volume up to 22L and a packet of youngs cider yeast.

I've had a prety decent ferment that now seems to have slowed/finished but I'm not sure what to do next.....

Please jump in with suggestions as this is my first propper cider brew (kits dont count)...

what I was planning was:

.rack into a clean 5 gallon brew bin with a bubbler
.leave for a further 2 weeks and test gravity to confirm its stopped
.Bottle (with a quarter tea spoon of sugar per bottle)
.leave for 2 weeks then start drinking


so whats the general feeling on my plan and recipe?

cheers folks!

Did you use any malic acid or any other additives or was it simply juice and sugar? If it's the latter then you pretty much have it. The only thing I would change is after it has sat in the secondary for a few weeks, I would rack again into the original FV to use as a bottling bucket. That way you can mix in some priming sugar without having to worry about sediment as much.

I would recommend the following...

1 Leave it till the weekend
2 Rack into sterilised secondary with bubbler etc, same as first.
3 Wait a fortnight
4 Add 150-200g of sugar in cool boiled water (depending how fizzy you want it) into sterilised bottling bucket (first FV cleaned and sterilised is ideal).
5 Rack from the secondary into the above bottling bucket with sugar.
6 Give a gentle stir to make sure the sugar is evenly distributed
7 Rack into bottles
8 Forget about it for a month while it matures
9 Stick one in the fridge for a week and then see what you have
10 Follow the same principle with subsequent bottles, stick them in the fridge for a week before drinking.

Job done

 

[graysalchemy]

Cider is best left to mature 3-6 months in bulk before bottling. :thumb:

 

[skint_golfer]

Cheers for the advice folks shame opiniins are split though. heres a little more info...

no extra additives were used and my brew time is slightly constrained as rhis is due to be drunk at bugjam (3rd weekend of july).

what I'm thinking now is to rack and fit a bubbler then bottle the weekend before ready for the main event....

hows that sound?

cheers.

 

[graysalchemy]

The problem with TC is that everyone thinks it is a quick drink. It isn't, like all cider most of the flavour comes from the maturation. Cider straight from the FV is very insipid especially if you didn't add any tannin or malic acid. The reason for this is due to the fact that carton apple juice is made from dessert apples which are low in malic acid and tannin, cider apples in general are higher in both. So in order to make cider you need to mimic the cider apples which means adding malic acid and tannin.

What you will end up with is a rather insipid cider not to dissimilar to cheap shop bought 'cider'.

If you want carbonated cider then you will need to bottle at least 2 weeks before you event in order for the co2 to develope and be absorbed into the cider. You need to initially place it somewhere warm for 5-7 days then somewhere cool for another week so that the co2 made in the first week is absorbed into the cider itself. I would use about 7g of sugar per gallon. The easiest way to bottle is the batch prime which means calculating how much sugar you need in total ie 23L x 7g = 161g mixing it with a little boiling water and placing it in a clean sterilized bucket/FV. Now transfere your cider onto this making sure you don't splash it, this will give an even mix of sugar. Now you can syphon into your bottles and cap. If you are carbonatinmg your cider make sure you use beer bottles or plastic pop bottles as these are designed to hold the pressure.

: :

 

[skint_golfer]

Right, thanks for that last post. cleared up a couple of things nicely there. will be changing my plans accordingly and if its not done in time then I'll just take a couple of gallons of the plumb and rhubarb wines I already have maturing.

cheers!

 

[TRXnMe]

Does the maturation phase have to take place in a FV, or should it be in a keg / bottle as with beer?

I've got the malic acid sorted out, I know where to get the tannin from have a 10% discount card for Asda (my wife works there) to get cheap apple and fruit juice, there are bottles and kegs waiting to be filled with something alchoholic, I just want to get it right :)