turbo cider questions.

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gingerhammer

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Im thinking of trying a turbo cider,what sort of apple juice should I use?I heard not to use stuff from concentrate,but ive seen youtube brewers using it.Also im going to do it in a 5gallon water bottle(plastic)again someone said only to use glass but youtube brewers use plastic better bottles.Would wine yeast work ok?And what sort of temp does it need to be kept at?Questions,Questions!
 
Use the stuff from concentrate - it's cheap and the results are superb. The cloudy stuff is expensive and (by all accounts) a bugger to clear.

Use any food grade plastic.

Keep it cool-ish. I like 18C for fermenting, goes at a decent pace but doesn't throw funky flavours or fusel alcohols.

Next - what style of cider do you want? Clean, sparkly, fizzy apple or dirty, tasty, west-country, scrumpy?
 
Not yet...

Basic recipe is cheapo AJ plus yeast.
But it needs tannin - use a mug of stupidly strong tea (per gallon), or powdered tannin
The yeast would like some nutrient
Now - do you want a clean style or a farmyard style?
If you want farmyard, you must add malic acid and use a yeast which carries the lactobacillus - eg one grown from the dregs of a bottle of Old Rosie, and leave it long enough after the basic ferment for the malolactic process to work.
If you want a clean style, no need for malic, use any yeast (but cider or champagne preferred), but it'll need something to round out the flavour. Everybody has their own favourite, but a good one to try first is 1/2l per gallon of cranberry.
Ferments out in 10 to 21 days depending on exact recipe and conditions.
If farmyard style, rack and leave to mature for a few months at least.
If clean style, bottle/keg with priming sugar (if you want it fizzy), condition 2weekswarm2weekscold.
The longer you leave it the better it'll be.

If this link works, it's a how-i-dunnit with pics:
http://www.zurker.co.uk/update-226066-123
 
All the cheapo juices seem to work, from reports I've heard, but I can only personally vouch for Lidl apple nectar, Morrison's cheapo, and Prince's.
If you're doing a plus-some-other-juice version, just make sure it doesn't have sorbates or sulphites in it.
As I've described it here, you get an ABV of about 5.5%. That's quite enough.
 
Thank you very much oldbloke i shall be getting a gallon of the clean stuff on this weekend to be secondaried in bottles for a nice cidery fizz :thumb: :cheers:
 
I used Lidl cloudy juice, not concentrate... 3 weeks fermenting and currently in bottles primed with a bit of sugar... 9.5% ABV :shock: :pray:
 
johnnyh said:
I used Lidl cloudy juice, not concentrate... 3 weeks fermenting and currently in bottles primed with a bit of sugar... 9.5% ABV :shock: :pray:

That must have had a bucket load of sugar in it??
 
can't say it did, I'll look up my notes when I get home, but was mainly the apple juice and champagne yeast.
 
Andyhull said:
What is the average % from just using the juice?

It depends on the sugar levels of the apple juice. Asda smart price, at 115g per litre, will get you to 6% on its own. By the time you prime it (5g per 500ml) you end up around 6.2%. I honestly wouldn't go any further than that.


johnnyh said:
can't say it did, I'll look up my notes when I get home, but was mainly the apple juice and champagne yeast.

Something has gone wrong with the measuring of the gravities IMO. Either that or you used concentrated apple juice. I don't know of any apple juice with the level of sugar required to hit those kind of figures.


Lidl Vitafit 100% Cloudy Apple Juice Not From Concentrate

Calories 460 Sodium 0 mg
Total Fat 1 g Potassium 0 mg
Saturated 0 g Total Carbs 110 g
Polyunsaturated 0 g Dietary Fiber 1 g
Monounsaturated 0 g Sugars 105 g
Trans 0 g Protein 1 g
Cholesterol 0 mg

That's what shows up after a quick google. If that's the same stuff then it'll have a starting gravity around 1.040 and be around 5.2% brewed on its own. By the time you add the priming sugar you will be seeing around 5.6% in the bottle.

If your starting gravity was higher than 1.040 then something has been added to the juice to increase it.
 
ScottM said:
By the time you prime it (5g per 500ml) you end up around 6.2%. I honestly wouldn't go any further than that.

I don't want to that'll be plenty, just didn't want to go adding any extra fermentables and end up with something not very nice.

Thanks ScottM

Andy
 
If half a litre of your gallon is tea, it drops the ABV to something slightly more sensible.

OTOH, I've done a few using actual concentrate, to get the apple quotient up, and they unavoidably come out 6.5 or more. Nice though.
 
Andyhull said:
ScottM said:
By the time you prime it (5g per 500ml) you end up around 6.2%. I honestly wouldn't go any further than that.

I don't want to that'll be plenty, just didn't want to go adding any extra fermentables and end up with something not very nice.

Thanks ScottM

Andy

I brewed a straight up TC recently, the flavour is REALLY strong. It's fantastic. I would have no issues at all with adding a LITTLE more sugar to up the ABV at the expense of "watering" down the flavour, it has it in abundance. I wouldn't go nuts though. But 6% for a drinking cider is definitely plenty for me :D

I do have a couple of "knockout" ciders in the fridge, but they are drank sparingly as there is no way I could sit and drink 8.5% cider all night :drunk:
 
So do i just ferment it out then add to bottles with a tsp of sugar as i would a beer/lager?
this is new teritory to me as i've only done wines before!
 
Andyhull said:
So do i just ferment it out then add to bottles with a tsp of sugar as i would a beer/lager?
this is new teritory to me as i've only done wines before!

IMO it's better to mature it for a month, even the clean ones, in bulk. I stored mine over the winter for 3 months in total and it's unbelievably good. I wish I had tried it at the month stages though, just to see if it peaked or not. Nothing worse than storing a drink for 3 months when it was good to go after 1 lol.

I ferment in the primary for a fortnight.
Rack to secondary and leave in the warm (20-ish) for a week.
Move secondary to cooler location and allow to mature for 1 month.
Move secondary to racking spot (for racking into bottles or bottling bucket) allow to settle for 2+ days
If bottling, add 5g of sugar per 500ml. If using a bottling bucket use 200g per 40 pint batch (5g per 500ml).

Mine needed back sweetening though. For me it's at its best with 15g per litre, for everyone who has tried it they have much preferred the strongbow bitter/sweet combo of 20g per litre.

This leaves you with the conditioning dilema and whether to use sweetener or sugar etc. But that's all personal preference of course.

I've gone with a barrel that I then transfer to soda stream bottles in 1L batches, I then add sugar as required, fizz it up in the sodastream and enjoy over ice. All done on the fly so no need to faff around with sweeteners or anything like that :D
 
Right, that was my dilema, the sweetening side of it to carbing it!
I think i'll go the same route as you with the soda stream, glad i didn't bin it now.
I may also bottle a couple with 1tsp of sugar and see what they taste like!

Thanks

Andy
 

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