My first TC

[Philipek]

Just finished off my first TC. After all-grain brewing, this is easy. Had to crow about it.

Put it in a 15L bottle.

Recipe
8.5 L Simply 100% Apple juice (cloudy with pulp, looks tastes gorgeous, got it on sale from Price Chopper - Canada's Somerfield)
100g corn sugar
1 cup of tea
Lalvin wine yeast

Came out at 1.050 OG

Phil

[Curious Brew]

Sounds good to me, how's it taste?

[Philipek]

Still bubbling away.

I just reread my first post. The way I wrote my first post, it sounds like it'd finished fermenting, been bottled and drunk.

Am I right in thinking that, while it can benefit from aging, it can be drunk young, even while still fermenting?

Phil

[Jabberwoc]

Phil,

I hope you don't mind me chipping in but by coincidence I started my own first Turbo Cider on the exact same day. I thought I too should post the 5 gallon recipe in case comparisons come in useful...I'm using (as per DREADSKIN'S suggestion);

22 litres value apple juice (56p per litre from Tesco, this includes 3 litres held back for priming)
1 jar clear Tesco honey (orderd the cheap stuff but they substituted for the good £ 1.77 stuff in the delivery!)
1 Bramley apple finely chopped
3 steeped cups of tea
1 sachet Youngs Cider Yeast
3 litres tap water

Cost 36p per pint assuming success.

Original Gravity was also 1.050.

Fermentation is progressing nicely - sounds like it is too. Fizzing would indicate happy yeast! Colour is fantastic - a rich ruby.

How's yours doing?

Cheers, Mark.

[Philipek]

Your very welcome Jabberwoc.

I wish I'd found Dreadskin's recipe before I embarked on my TC - next time. Also, I've managed to find apple juice at 1 dollar a litre. Next time I'm doing 20 litres and I'm chucking in an apple. Not a Bramley, we've got different apples out here in Canada, and I'll see if I can find dry cider yeast, but I don't fancy my luck.

TC is so simple, I don't understand why everyone doesn't make it, especially as bread yeast can be used apparently without an appreciable effect on the flavour of the finished product.

For the first two days, the airlock smelt of apple juice, now it's beginning to smell funky, still bubbling away.

[DREADSKIN]

if you can find any cooking apples in canada use them. its for the acid. and stick in 3 per gallon

[Philipek]

Yeah, I guessed that the apple was for the acid, or i probably read it in one of the threads in the past few days. I was going to find the most acidic apple I could and bung that in, but that would take a little bit of research. Thanks for the tip, though. I'll go for a cooking apple instead.

Out of interest, could one use malic acid instead of an apple? it's probably cheaper and definitely easier to use an apple, but I was just wondering.

[Jabberwoc]

Oh.....I thought it was just one apple, Dreadskin. I didn't realise it would be 15!

I'll have to report my findings when it's ready.........

Cheers, Mark (UK).

[Jabberwoc]

7 days - hydrometer reads 1.000

That's turbo alright!!

Kegging and priming.........

How's yours doing, Phil?

[Philipek]

Bottled day before yesterday FG - 1002. Had a pint out of the bottling bucket; it tasted really great, and apparently this stuff gets better with age!!!. All but one litre was in plastic - going to serve it at a barbecue on Sunday. The two bottles are going into storage for as long as I have patience.

This was made with cloudy apple juice, with hefty sediment. I wonder if this is similar to real cider must, obviating the need for crushed apples (which would be good seeing as I didn't put any in).

This was so easy, and the result was so good that there should be a law against it.

I've started looking up cider presses to make this more difficult.

[Jabberwoc]

Ha! Ha! Yes..I too have been researching on Amazon and eBay for cider presses.....might have to get an orchard first, though!

Just added 2 more litres of apple juice to prime and F.G. is 1.003

Going to leave the keg in the kitchen for 7 days and then down into the cellar it goes.

Any veteran cider-makers care to reassure me this is the correct procedure, please?

Looks and smells like the real deal to me..looking forward to this one....

Criminally easy - got the juice delivered by Tesco with my shopping so I even escaped the Inquisition at the checkout!!

Cheers, Mark.

[Philipek]

Interestingly cider presses seem to be cheaper than grain mills, though there are tonnes of plans on the 'net on how to make your own, and they seem to be far easier to construct which would explain the difference in cost. For me, TC was a diversion from the massive amount of labour that goes into my beer brewing (still not refined my process), so I wouldn't normally have thought about cider presses, what with pure apple juice at $1 a litre and champagne yeast at 50c.

However, a friend of mine said that he'd always wanted to make cider from scratch. This has haunted me ever since he told me this so I've been looking at said plans. A chap on you tube put one together out of a drum a bottle jack and some lengths of wood. He mentions that you don't need to use yeast!!

The plan is to have the press ready for Autumn, drive out of Toronto to an orchard and get a shed load of apples cheap, then spend a day mushing and pressing and drinking TC (as inspiration.

I will of course post photos, should this happy plan come to fruition.

[Jabberwoc]

I think this is the bottle-jack video, Phil?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b0fvkiSHOsY

I'm definitely going to give that a go....

**Update: Had a sneaky sip of the two day kegged and primed cider.....good, strong, tasty stuff!**

How long do you plan on leaving yours to age?

Cheers, Mark.

[Philipek]

Till Sunday. Wife's birthday party, and it's in plastic so it won't last long. I did however put cider in two glass bottles. I'll leave them till christmas or maybe longer. The main thing I love about TC is the ease; my first love and only true love is beer, so it shouldn't be too hard. This first batch was part practice, part filling out the booze for the party.

Now that I know what it can be like in one week, I marvel to think how it would improve. I think in the future I'll do a full 20 litre batch in glass and let it sit for a good few months.

Yes, that is the video. Did you see how the juice flew out with just a few cranks of that thing (oo er) - amazing! I'm not very good at making stuff, but that actually looks doable. Instead, of a drum have a box with some gaps at the bottom.

[Jabberwoc]

Bottle jacks seem to go for GBP 15 brand new....much cheaper than a cider-press purchase!!

Enjoy the party...