TC Today?

[adm]

I just topped up the 2 TCs with another litre of juice each......and the apple & pineapple one has gone mental. Lucky I had them on the kitchen table for observation. It looks like a volcano oozing lava.

Smells nice though.

The Apple & Raspberry "juice drink" one is more laid back. My conclusion from this is there are more easy fermentables in the pure juice than in the "juice drink".

[daveyk]

A level teaspoon (scraped with the back of a knife?) of gran per 500ml bottle, and make sure you leave at least an inch of headspace. Put the bottles somewhere indoors for a week (room temp) to prime, then think about testing at your preferred serving temp, using a glass, your mouth...

Once these have had their week in the warm for priming are they reay then? Or do they need to clear, mature, condition like beer? If so for how long?

Dave.

[arturobandini]

Hi all, My TC hasn't really been the explosive fermentation that a lot of people on here have mentioned and has maintained a steady bubbling every 7 seconds since last Saturday. I have read that TC will naturally start to clear as it ferments out and this along with longer gaps between airlock activity is a good indicator of a finished fermentation. I have a 4.5 litre batch and i intend to prime with another 1/2 litre of the apple juice I used to make it. Does this sound like too much if I am going to put it in glass bottles and crown cap it?

[edit1now]

Dave - dunno, ours never lasts very long.

Arturo - sorry, I haven't tried priming with more juice. Do a search in Other brews?

[adm]

One of mine seems to be about done - the pure juice one. The one made with part pure juice and part "juice drink" is still bubbling away every 4 seconds.

I think I'll try to bottle them on Sunday if they both appear to be finished.

The juice one is completely cloudy, the other is kind of clearing....

[Marts]

Hi all, My TC hasn't really been the explosive fermentation that a lot of people on here have mentioned and has maintained a steady bubbling every 7 seconds since last Saturday. I have read that TC will naturally start to clear as it ferments out and this along with longer gaps between airlock activity is a good indicator of a finished fermentation. I have a 4.5 litre batch and i intend to prime with another 1/2 litre of the apple juice I used to make it. Does this sound like too much if I am going to put it in glass bottles and crown cap it?

I rarely get explosive fermentation with TC, just plenty of bubbling through the airlock.

Priming with apple juice provides some sugars for carbonation but less than if you add pure sugar. Its benefit is that it can sweeten a dry cider - particularly with high alcohol yeasts the brew can be too dry for many peoples' taste.

Plain TC will clear alot quicker than TC mixed with pineapple, but it often won't happen until some time after bottling. You can add finings if you really want to clear it up quickly, but personally I wouldn't bother. Just stand it in awarm place first to let carbonation happen, then a cool place to clear.

[arturobandini]

Bottled this up an hour or so ago. 5 litres is certainly lot less work than 5 gallons but it was a complete mess as I was bottling from a constantly running siphon. I added a bit of sugar to each bottle and capped up for a week in the warm. Dry as anything it fermented down to 1004 from 1046 so about 5.5% or thereabouts. It might be alright if it carbonates and is bloody cold. Anyone get more appleyness from better quality apple juice?


Oh and never use Becks bottles (275ml) as they don't cap and forcing it ends up with shattering...oops! I would normally not use anything like that for bottling but I've got a pretty relaxed attitude to this TC to be honest.

How's the fruit TC coming adm?

[adm]

Well......

I bottled the apple & pineapple one on Friday into 500ml beer bottles, each with 1.5 Coopers carbonation drops. The bottles are sitting in the warm to hopefully carbonate. It was down to 0.996, which is 10.3% ABV !!!

As for the other one, it's still bubbling away every four seconds or so and showing no sign of stopping. Which is good as I have no more bottles!

[Prozac]

My latest TC is bubbling away..... since a week last Saturday......
I was in Morrisons today and bought 5L of Princes AJ too..... bargain at 50p a L.

[arturobandini]

Just cracked open a bottle for carbonationg purposes and it is perfectly carbonated and nice and dry. As previously stated I'm not a big fan of cider but i'm quite impressed with the results of very little effort. Cheers!

[adm]

Well......

I bottled the apple & pineapple one on Friday into 500ml beer bottles, each with 1.5 Coopers carbonation drops. The bottles are sitting in the warm to hopefully carbonate. It was down to 0.996, which is 10.3% ABV !!!

As for the other one, it's still bubbling away every four seconds or so and showing no sign of stopping. Which is good as I have no more bottles!

That's the apple and raspberry juice drink one bottled now. FG was 0.996, so that's about 9.6% ABV. Tastes VERY dry and might need a bit of something sweet to go with it when drunk....maybe a dash of some raspberry liquer.

Bit of a bummer as one of the bottles I have won't cap properly. It's a 750ml beer bottle and the cap needs to be wider. Oh well - I guess I'll just have to drink it flat this evening.... At least the priming sugar should sweeten it up as it won't have time to ferment!

Next TCs will just be pure apple juice I think - maybe with some spices for Christmas.

Has anyone used beer yeast with TC? I've only got US05, SO4 and Nottingham yeasts in right now....

[Benson_JV]

My latest TC is bubbling away..... since a week last Saturday......
I was in Morrisons today and bought 5L of Princes AJ too..... bargain at 50p a L.

Yeah mine's still going, so much for the turbo, then again, i added that kilo of sugar, i estimate it to be around 10%ABV currently, and the SG is only at 1040 currently, so more to drop
It doesnt taste half bad though, when i checked the gravity last night, i had the smallest sample, quite good in all fairness! Very very sweet though, but eh, well

[Marts]

Has anyone used beer yeast with TC? I've only got US05, SO4 and Nottingham yeasts in right now....

Yep SO4 works out fine. Bit of a costly addition to TC though (Says he who keeps using Lalvin champagne yeast)

[arturobandini]

I used an ale yeast that came with a Youngs Brewbuddy lager kit which seemed to do the job admirably.

To make the cider sweeter I suppose you could add a non-fermentable sugar like lactose when you're making it up so that once all the fermentable sugars are stripped out you are still left with a residual sweetness? Extra costs are frowned upon in turbo cider circles so you'd probably have to keep it on the down low if you did add non-fermentable sugar.

[Mitchamitri]

We let our tc ferment out to fully dry - SWMBO will then sweeten it with lemonade at drinky time, which has the duel effect of sweetening it and diluting it down to an abv she can drink comfortably.