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yeastinfection

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some one put a link up to this for me, but looking at the wow instructions on this site im not sure if its as simple as it says, can any one tell me if i need to add anything like finings or camden tablets ect?

1 x Demijohn
1 x bung and airlock
Sterilising tablets (milton etc)
5 x value apple juice (the cheaper the better)
1 x Cider or Champagne yeast
1 x Syphon tube
4 x tonic water bottles
household sugar for priming


These items are handy but not absolutely necessary


1 x Hydrometer
250g Brewing sugar for the Park Bench Reserve
1/2 cup of stewed black tea (to replace tannins lost by missing apple skins).


The method is easy enough:




  1. Sterilise the demijohn, rinse so you can't smell bleach any more then pour in 4 of the five cartons of apple juice.
  2. For Park Bench Reserve, add the 250g of brewing sugar (you can use household but you will find brewing sugar dissolves more easily and doesn't affect the taste) and give it a bit of a shake. Add the stewed (black) tea if you want to.
  3. Take original gravity with the hydrometer if you're bothered about knowing how strong it will be. It's worth tying some cotton around the tip of the hydrometer so you can pull it out of the demijohn (I didn't and it was a right ******* to get out)
  4. Add cider or champagne yeast, fit bung and airlock
  5. Half fill airlock with cooled boiled water and leave for a week somewhere around 20C is ideal, after about 24 hours you'll start to hear the soothing sound of the airlock "plipping"; very therapeutic.
  6. On day five (or when the bubbles in the airlock have subsided) remove the bung and airlock and add the fifth carton of apple juice.
  7. Leave another three or four days and then take the final gravity (you're looking for a reading of 1.000 or lower, remaining stable for a 48 hour period).
Bottling.


Once you've reached this stage you have choices. Prefer still cider? You can syphon it into a second demijohn. Want it fizzy? In that case you sterilise the four tonic water bottles, then add a level teaspoon of household sugar to each bottle for priming; this is the period of secondary fermentation where the last of the yeast present in suspension will convert to a very small amount of alcohol and, mainly, CO2.


Once you've primed your bottles, cap and gently invert them to mix the priming sugar then leave in a warm place (not the airing cupboard) for a week before leaving somewhere cooler for 3-4 weeks to condition.


Fizzy cider made this way will throw a sediment to, when you open the bottle, best to decant into a jug. Alternatively you can use 500ml diet coke bottles but halve the amount of priming sugar.



Calculating the ABV%.


This is best done by using the readings from your hydrometer. You'll have made a note of your OG (original gravity) and your final gravity. Then simply put the values into The ABV calculator HERE and adjust the temperature reading to 20c. Typically, apple juice without added sugar will read about 1.042 on a hydrometer and will ferment out to about .998 which will give you about 6% whereas the addition of 250g of brewing sugar takes the OG up to the 1.060 region.
 
This is a cider recipe using 5 litres of juice, the supermarket juice wine thread you originally posted it in which is HERE uses two litres of juice and a lot more sugar for 13% ABV (ish)
 
Hi again
can someone please advise me on the above recipe,its allmost ready but very cloudy still. can i treat this the same as "wow" and rack it in to another dj and use finings to clear it?
oh and do i need a camden tablet aswell?
thank you :grin:
 
My method is similar. Couple of differences :-

I pour a bit of the AJ out of the carton, put the lid back on and give it a really good shake to aerate it.
I always use tea -assam leaf tea (posh).
I add the additional AJ after two days (without shaking it) and it goes from a blip every 15-20 seconds to one a second.
I've never used a campden tablet.

I've recently started adding non-fermentable sweetener at bottling time as the rest of the family found it too dry.

Of the ones I've made I prefer the one made with cloudy AJ as you can still taste the apples.

The cloudiness will be yeast in suspension. It should clear by itself when you cool it after its carbonated.
 
The original recipe quoted is for 'pure' cider, with no added water or sugar. In this case, only dessert apple juice is used, so the cider will be a bit deficient in malic acid and tannin, so the end product will lack bite. I once made loads of the stuff from the apples in my garden and while it was pleasant enough, it was not quality cider. I gave it to a neighbour who made appalling crude rum from sugar alone and he produced an 'experimental small quantity for personal non profit use' of apple 'brandy' which was slightly less unpalatable than his 'rum'. The phrase 'experimental small quantity for non profit use' effectively legitimises the process involved, according to HMRC, and I have that in writing from them. Was it worth it? Only inasmuch as the clean stuff can be used to fortify home made port and the poisonous by products (methyl alcohol and acetone) make good surgical spirit and paint stripper!
A far better use was to turn this 'cider' into wine, which did not require the miraculous services of the Saviour, just a basic brew using cheap sultanas, with the low alcohol fermented apple juice added half way through. Elderflowers and honey helped make this a really nice wine.
 
I've been making the Rose that's in the opening post of the big wow thread. It's been fermenting for 2 weeks. Slowed right down now but I can still see bubbles rising in the wine. Is this ok? Should I attempt to stabilise? I haven't taken a reading.
 
Take a reading and if its below 995 give it another week for the yeast to clean up after itself then rack it to the second DJ onto a crushed campden tablet, degas, stabilise and add finings to clear it, not allowing the yeast to clear up could make your wine give you a bad head or worse bad guts.
 
They cost little and last a long time, for me its not worth the risk not using them.

When we rack we add oxygen to the wine and expose it to airborne micro-organisms, this can causes the wine to oxidise if antioxidants are not present, we add one crushed Campden tablet to the DJ when we rack to prevent oxidation, the same antioxidant protect the wine from airborne bacteria and moulds.
 
Can the wine spoil if it ferments too long? I'd rather leave it and be sure it's done than risk giving someone bad guts. I'm in no rush.
 
It cannot ferment too long, it will get to a point where it is dry (hydrometer reading .990) and then wont go much lower because all the sugar has been turned into alcohol.

Using a hydrometer takes the guess work out, if you don't have one and intend to make wine, cider or beer regularly you should get one as its the only way to know for sure fermentation has finished.

As i have been making the same type of wine for a long time the method i now use (i have a thermometer) is wait until you only see a single bubble once every minute or more note the date then give it 7 days before moving on to racking as discussed earlier.
 
It cannot ferment too long, it will get to a point where it is dry (hydrometer reading .990) and then wont go much lower because all the sugar has been turned into alcohol.

Using a hydrometer takes the guess work out, if you don't have one and intend to make wine, cider or beer regularly you should get one as its the only way to know for sure fermentation has finished.

As i have been making the same type of wine for a long time the method i now use (i have a thermometer) is wait until you only see a single bubble once every minute or more note the date then give it 7 days before moving on to racking as discussed earlier.

I do have one I'm just lazy. Thanks for the advice.
 

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