Planning first TC

[BritishBelgianTwst]

OK, yesterday evening I went to Colruyt, a Belgian supermarket that has good cheap stuff as well as the normal brands. Anyway they have a real cheap range, a bit like Fine Fare's yellow pack stuff (if anyone can remember Fine Fare) so I bought myself 12 litres of apple juice and 2 litres of grape juice, all for about 8 Euros which works out at about 50p per litre (if the exchange rate is correct).
Now today the missus is going to the shops and will get my tea bags so all that's left is to make the stuff on Saturday morning.

So I'm planning on buying a couple of DJs as I want to try out different recipes and not go straight for a 20 litre batch of mouthwash.

I have a few questions regarding the recipe for my first TC.

I was thinking of doing something along the lines of:

3 litres of apple juice
1 litre of grape juice
1 mug of strong tea
Some sugar/honey (if there is any honey left in the cupboard)
Some blackberries (they're growing wild in one of my hazelnut trees - and yes I know that hazels grow on hazelnut trees )
Bread yeast (or possibly wine yeast if they've got any at the garden shop when I buy my DJs on Saturday morning)


So the questions are as follows:
How many teabags do you think I should use so as not to have too much tannin?
How much sugar should I add? I'd like a medium to strong brew, about 8%, the apple juice has 10g per 100ml of sugar and the grape juice 15g. I don't know if this'll all get converted to alcohol hence the Q about the sugar addition.

Thanks for your help! For info I don't know if I'll rack it off and re-ferment in the second DJ or just straight into the primed PET bottles as I quite fancy a cloudy zider.

cheers,

Paul

[pauljmuk]

Hi there

Firstly - re your cheap apple juice - check the label -make sure nothing that ends with "ite" or "ate" is in there, as it may interfere with the yeasties - I use sainsbury value cheapo AJ - and it is 100% pure apple from concentrate.

Re your questions - I make my TC's in 5gallon (20 litre) batches, so you will have to scale my numbers down -

I use 4-5 teabags, and 500 - 750g sugars

[BritishBelgianTwst]

Hi,

Thanks to a previous post of yours I checked the ingredients in both apple & grape juice and neither have ites or ates. Both are made with 100% concentrate and the grape juice even has some E330 which it turns out is citric acid - an added bonus as I'll probably not need to add any myself!
So 1 - 2 teabags and 150 grammes of sugar should be OK then. Smashing!

[Philipek]

What are the teabags for?

[moobli]

i replaced the sugar with honey 300g
and added 3 teabags to a cup of tea with two sugars (demirara)

then primed the bottles later with 1/2 tsp of the demirara sugar

got a nice not too carbonated refreshing summer cider that has a about a 7%abv



did a basic tc and used the honey and the demi sugar as above but used fruit tbags 4of them (blackcurrent bursters) instead of normal tbags

and from early tastes it is very very very nice and quite close to the jaques fruit cider that is sold

i used allisons bread yeast 7g pouch in each dj

i think the TC gurus on here say have fun and give it a spin i just got 3 punnets of strawbs and made a tc with 2 punnets
i worked it out at something silly like 60pence a pint for a 7+% cider

[BritishBelgianTwst]

What are the teabags for?

In case you get a thirst on whilst messing about with the brewing.

No seriously it's an easy source of tannin so that the cider has a bit more bite to it (I think). From what I've read it usually comes from certain apples used in cider making but as apple juice doesn't have any then you have to add some from an external source and tea is a cheap, easy way of doing it.

By the way as I've not got past the planning stage don't just take my word for it. Do a search on tea bags and you'll see for yourself.

[Philipek]

No, I believe you about the teabags, I've read it in other posts. You just picked the shortest straw in posting just as I was getting ready to make my own TC.

So the tannins are a flavour thing? I was thinking that it was something for the yeast to chew on.

I simplified the recipe - apple juice, wine yeast - but might relent and chuck some sugar, yeast nutrient and tea in. The thing is I bought 8 litres of apple juice, but this stuff's really cloudy so I'm thinking that it's more like cider must and that I might not need the extras, and i'm a lightweight and so would prefer a 5% rather than a 9% tipple.

[timothio]

So the tannins are a flavour thing? I was thinking that it was something for the yeast to chew on.

Tannin is more for a "mouth feel" kinda thing than for flavour. Gives it more body so you're not just drinking alcoholic apple water.

would prefer a 5% rather than a 9% tipple.

What on earth is wrong with you man? I trust you also wear high heels and a dress whilst brewing? You big girls blouse...

[DREADSKIN]

lol. oh how i laughed!

[micmacmoc]

i often wear high heels and a dress whilst brewing, but I like a nice strong brew too.

[Philipek]

would prefer a 5% rather than a 9% tipple.

What on earth is wrong with you man? I trust you also wear high heels and a dress whilst brewing? You big girls blouse...

No, I wear an old fashioned white and blue sailor suit and have a balloon with me everywhere I go, though. Why?

One of the main reasons I got into homebrewing was because I'm living in Canada and the commercial beers are 5%! Sometimes 5.5%. Knocks me sideways. So I'm brewing milds and best bitters like anything.

[BritishBelgianTwst]

Well I bottled my first TC on Thursday afternoon and only have 1 1/2 litres left this morning!
I have to say that I was very happy with the results, even if it doesn't taste anything like cider.
I worked out the ABV was approx 8% when I bottled - the FG was down to 998 on Thursday and I calculated that the OG was about 1060.
I drank one bottle straight away with my dad & brother and then primed two more bottles with sugar cane syrup (from a bottle I found in the back of the cupboard) - both bottles needed de-gasing as I put far too much syrup and didn't fancy a foam party on opening.

Final recipe was:
3.5 litres apple juice
1 litre red grape juice
1 cup strong tea
250g cane sugar
handful of crushed blackberries
bread yeast

Turned out fairly sour but when served over crushed ice with a drop of cane syrup it tasted great - bit like a sangria.

Following the bottling I topped up my 5 litre pet bottle with 4 litres apple juice on it's own - still has a red colour to it but not as deep as the previous. Should work out at about 5.5% ABV which'll be nice for Friday night!

Last night I re-did my first TC but this time I've strained the blackberry pips out of the mix when putting into the FV and also upped the sugar (250g of cane and a good handful or so of dark brown belgian candy sugar). I reckon that I'll be hitting an OG of between 1075 and 1080 as I've not measured the sugar addition but reckon it was somwhere in the region of 150 - 200g. Oh and I'm fermenting with Youngs high alcohol wine yeast.