TC newbie and possible idiot !

[RatboyOllie]

Hello everyone,

first things first, this site is excellent and has possibly created a monster in me. Ive been to buy everything I thought I might need and am now hell bent on making alsorts of stuff thanks to the recipes and advice on here.

Thought I would start with a TC coz I love me dry cider, 4 litres of AJ added, 2 cinamon sticks, tea and a pot of golden syrup. Ive held onto a litre of pear juice that i would whack in after w hile to start a secondary ferment and maybe a bit to prime me bottles too.

However, in my excitement (im 29 but feel like a kid at xmas all over again) I firstly forgot to heat the syrup in a pan of AJ and then my second idiotic thing was to just through a tea bag in the brew and not an actual cup of tea? As soon as I did I though "crap" but what the hell, ive left it in there, will it be ok or should I fish it out whilst i still can? What a nob. Then i also didnt do anything with the yeast, other than chuck it all in and shake it all violently.

Ive opted to ferment all this in a big fermenting bucket with airlock but couldnt find anyone else here using a fermenting bin to do this, will it be ok? I was gonna siphon it into a demijon after the initial ferment, I cant risk it explodin int he kitchen coz her-indoors will beat the livin daylights out of me!!

Ive got a hydrometer but no test tube thing, forgot all about it, anyone any ideas what i can use instead or do i have to buy one?

Also, because I forgot to heat it up at the start and disolve the syrup, is it a non starter? its been in an hour and isnt doing anything visible, no bubbles in airlock or nayhting?

Should i start again? Ive been reading on this forum for weeks now and then I finally came to start and was just so f***n excited i kind just threw it all in and then realised in fact im a complete idiot. Will it still go?

Please help..................

Cheers chaps

[edit1now]

If you think the syrup is still sitting at the bottom of the bucket, sanitise a spoon and give it a good stir. Don't worry about the lost teabag, you won't get much tea flavour out of it at room temperature.

Don't panic. TC is very forgiving. As long as the yeast starts making a few bubbles sometime tomorrow

[farmhousekeg]

Hi Ratboy - I love your honesty - I am laughing like a drain readin your post - I have so been there myself and I'm almost 50!! Never made TC myself but also getin the itch to give it a go, having read lots of posts here. I was also wondering about using an FV and maybe uping the quantities - how long will 5 litres last after all!!! As I say I've never done TC but for sure you need to be patient and let the yeasties waken up first before you can expect to see any action which will take several hours, so by the morning the action should be starting. Good Luck, I'll be keeing an eye on this thread.

[Mitchamitri]

Chop the top off an empty squash bottle (ie before the neck starts to curve) and you’ll have a very cheap hydrometer jar. Make sure you sterilise it and your hydrometer as this will need to much fluid as you won’t want to waste irt.
If fermentation has already begun its too late to get a fully accurate reading but your ingredients I guess would give you a 6-7% brew.
The hydrometer iss till useful thoughh - you can tell when fermentation has stopped.

[RatboyOllie]

cheers for the replies everyone ! Appreciated.

I have no bubbles at all even now (5pm day after start), checked this morning and the airlock was actually full on one side and empty on the other so i gave it a bit of a shake and it even'd it self out again, its normal still now ive returned home from work, but no bubbles, no nothing, just looks like alot of apple juice, complete with tea bag?! I guess it could catch on, maybe youll all be doing this soon????!!!

The ambient air temperature is 18 degrees and its in the little room where the boiler is so it never really gets colder than around 16 at night. Im stuck now really.

I guess i'm an anus basically and have arsed me first ever brew up by getting too giddy and just throwin everythin in at once. Is it purely because I dint pitch the yeast properly? Shall I try putting a heat mat under there, ive managed to scrounge one.

So far it seems like I have 4 litres of really sweet AJ, complete with crazy teabag and floating cinamon sticks ! Yum yum !!

I gave a good old shake yesterday and so the syrup does actually appear to have gone into the AJ, there doesnt appear to be any sat on the bottom of the fermenting bin, i was hoping it might start today to be honest........

What should I do? Will heat help or shall i give up and just keep on goin tot he local instead?!

How could I get this wrong, if this is the easiest brew of all then god help me for my Belgian Beer and Merlot kits ive bought?!

[Duffbeer]

Heat...get it on that heat mat, it can ferment at these temps but needs warmth for the yeast to start off, also wrap the fermenter in some bubble wrap or a blanket to maintain the temp, 16c is a little too low realy without a heat mat .

[RatboyOllie]

cheers duffbeer

the heat mat is underneath, the fleece blanket is wrapped around it, it now must be warmer than i am and better looked after too!

As i was putting the mat underneath i leaned very lightly on the lid of the fv, at which point the water in the airlock shifted from one side to the other and nearly came out of the top. Now in my very unscientific and clearly not very large brain, doesnt that mean that the fv is full of gas and by pushing the lid i was pushing down on a pocket of gas that was in turn pushing the fluid in the airlock? Am i getting over excited, is it just air inside there? I was briefly excited then when i looked through the lid i could see the tea bag floating there and remembered what a pillack i was.

i will let ya know if anything happens later this evening, there is probably nowt on the telly as usual so i will sit and watch my fv like the sad loser that I am !

Fingers crossed !

By the way, all my stuff was purchased at the long established local homebrew shop. When i told him i was making a turbo cider he nigh on told me it was impossible with anything but the finest organic juices as there were too many E224 i think he said, couldve been another, but it was E something or other and it would just kill the yeast. I said i had been reading a forum where many people were just using plain old juice and explained that for the cost involved i was happy to take a punt. He clealry thought i was a fckin idiot, which i have now proved right, but, he looked up on some sort of yeast chart and told me I needed this certain one which would be tolerant to E whatever it was. Ive thrown the bloody thing away and the bin men have now been but it was a wine yeast of some sort. Why would the guy tell me it wasnt possible, he definitely knew what he was talking baout in all other respects and was happy enought to talk me through all the kit and stuff, i thought that was very strange, especially as its clearly something that lots of people brew..................?

Love this forum and all its info, cheers everyone

Duffer_Ollie

[Duffbeer]

The build up of gas is probably co2, so it could well be fermenting slowly.

The guy in the homebrew shop is sort of right, many juices contain E2*** which is potassium sorbate a yeast inhibater, but theres also a lot of juices that don't contain it, check the ingredient list on juice you buy. as for the yeast, he's talking coblers, there's no yeast that is tolerant of sorbate. If it's anything like my local hbs then they'll spin a yarn to make a sale.

[RatboyOllie]

ha ha, sounds about right to be honest because he tried to sell me a cider kit just before I was adamant i was making TC that he said wasnt possible !!!

but...................

HEAT HEAT HEAT !!

Ive just come home from the local, drowning my sorrows at my failure, and there she is bubbling like a good un !! The heat has worked !!!! WOOOHOOOOO!

I could hear it as soon as i walked in the door ! Music to my ears !

Its working, the airlock is bubbling away violently !!!

Do I need to do anything else now its working? Im amazed !

Im scared of messin it up, shall i just leave well alone now?

Cheers for replying everyone,

Apologies for bein such a nob end !

TC_TossPot_Ollie

[boingy]

No need to apologise. It sounds like you are having fun!

I have also been tempted by the TC stuff on here. Apart from anything else I love the randomness of the recipes and the cavalier attitude to the process. So I bought some random juices and set-up three 1 litre experiments going, using 2 litre pop bottles in place of demijohns. I just chucked in some spare beer yeast. It's quite bizarre. One of them "fermented" for 4 days then stopped having formed a thin layer of sediment. I checked the gravity and it had not moved from the original one! So I poured the sample back into the bottle, shook it and over the next two days it formed an inch of sediment and the SG went down from 1050 to 1005. I racked it off the sediment into a 1 litre coke bottle, stuck it in a cool place and in a few days it has built-up another half inch of sediment! That one is now maturing lol.

The other two batches have both been reluctant to ferment although one is now getting going. The one that has been the surprise was the one that just contained pure apple juice. I thought that one would be the banker but my nose is defo detecting a whiff of sulpher from it.
Definitely worthy of further exploration.

So, no, you are not an idiot. You're just a free-thinking, revolutionary, freedom fighter who chooses, erm, fruit juice as his weapon. Or something.

[Mitchamitri]

Don't worry about E numbers - if it has an E reference it HAS to be labelled by its E reference or description by law on the food ingredients. Just check the label - if doesnt say it it doesnt have it. Most pure juices - even the cheap ones - are pasteurised at high temperature so the E numbers arent used.

[randomdave]

Great stuff hearing your TC is on the move. Ive just polished off my first one, it lasted 8 days from me bottling it up. Cracking stuff. To avoid the E number problem just use 100% juice from concentrate. There is one E number that wont be a problem as far as i know tho an thats the E number for Malic Acid. Cant wait for my second batch to be bottled an ready to go, im a thirsty young man.

[Mitchamitri]

Same with cans of fruit - for safety I stay away from anything with "ites" and "ates" in the ingredients list.

[RatboyOllie]

cheers everyone. I especially like the fact I'm now a free thinking revolutionary !! Brilliant, my woman disagrees slightly, but what does she know?!

The fv is definitely full with CO2 now and if i so much as touch the lid, it has bowed slightly, all the gas comes bubbling out of the air lock at a ridiculous rate. I keep doing it slowly so that it doesnt build up too much but im guessing it owuld just release itself through the airlock anyway, thats what its there for, ok ok so i just like watchin it bubble and thought i would give it a helping hand..........

I will definitely report back on how i get on. I am going to see whats happening after about 10 days and then rack off into a new demijohn, leave for a few days then bottle, unless anyone on here thinks otherwise? I will happily listen to any advice thats for sure ! Only real reason i am racking off into a demi is because I havent used my siphon yet so figured I would practice into something big before bottling !! Remember, ive already proved im fairly simple!

i will be bottling into primed 1 litre PET bottles and leave for a few weeks except for 2 litres which i am going to bottle properly, cap, and then leave for a good while and see how it tastes in a few months, just for comparrison sake.

In fact, a question for you experienced TC'ers out there, shall i prime into my demi jon when racking or just leave it for the bottles?

Cheers again

Happier_Ollie

[Duffbeer]

Tip.. buy a hydrometer and trial jar and get used to using it, it is the only true way of monitering the progress of fermentation. Also take great care when selecting bottles for priming in, they must be pressure resistant.
Hope it all works out well.