Cider weekend! + question

[sleepygonzales]

So I picked a load of unidentified cider apples from a friends garden a couple of weeks ago, and me and my dad just finished processing them. We hired a basket press, and pulped the apples first using good old fashioned ignorance. From our estimations we were getting about 60% yield from the apples, which was slightly dissappointing comparing to other peoples set ups I have seen on this forum, but hey, its a good start.


So here is me and the old man hard at work...



Me on the manual pulpmaster 5000



And this is what we got....

48 litres of giggle juice



I am a bit concerend that I am going to mess it up somehow, so I have a few questions, just for reassurance really.

I put a camden tablet per gallon in everything, and I used an all purpose white wine yeast for 23l of liquid in each of the larger vats. Good so far?

I dont have a demijon for the remaining 2 gallons, so i put 2 camdens in the bucket and shut the lid. Will it keep untill i can buy another demijon. How long will it keep for? Am I wasting my time on the 2 gallons?

Have I left too much air in the 5 gallon efforts? I filled it to 23 litres as thats what a sachet of yeast is for.

How important is the type of yeast I use? Or is that a really stupid noob question?

I am going to another friends place to pick more cider apples next weekend, so the following week i will be doing it all again, so if I am making any mistakes, or if I could be doing anything better, I would love to know about it.

Thanks in advance

[floydmeddler]

Looks good man! Great to get your pops involved too.

The campden tablet was a good idea I reckon.

I would use some ale yeast in the next batch for a sweeter cider.

Perhaps to get more that 60%, you could pulp them instead of bashing with a stick. Think you can buy a blade contraption that connects to a drill. Or, if you're handy, you could build one of these! http://www.sentex.net/~mwandel/press/apple_grinder.html

Keep us posted. Sadly I, once again, won't be making cider this year...

[Trunky]

[floydmeddler]

Interesting. So, ale yeast is out the window then. Have seen a guy on Youtube use it and thought it made sense until now! So, to get a sweeter should he cider kill the yeast or is there another method?

[floydmeddler]

sleepygonzales, what are all the bottles in the background? Are those home made jams as well?

[Trunky]

[floydmeddler]

Long process! Had some sweet cider in France over the holidays. Maybe it was made using this process...

[sleepygonzales]

I have bought a book called Real Cider Making On A Small Scale. It describes a process by which you ferment all the sugar to alcohol, then add more sugar and ferment that to alcohol too (for a higher abv), then add a bit of sugar to make it medium sweet (how i like it), then stop the fermentation process with Camden and cool storing. So you end up with a high % alcohol cider that is not dry as hell. So that is what I am going to try.

I just got back from another of my friends house who had some apples to offer. I am a bit concerned that they are all cooking apples. I tasted them and they were nice to eat, pretty sweet, but still with a little sharpness. Not sure. I am going to give them a go and find out if I can make them into cider, but I am a little dubious. Me and Dad are building a press tomorrow, we wer'nt impressed with the basket press. Also we are modding my sisters garden chipper for better scratting (nobody tell her). Will post more pics and updates next week after we have processed the 2nd batch.

The jars in the back ground are:

strawberry jam, rasberry jam, plumb and cinnamon jam, redcurrent jelly, 2 types of chutney, rasberry vinegar (which is bloomin loverly), pickled pears, elderflower wine (in the bottles) and pontac sauce. I also have elderberry wine on the go, and a big jar of rumtopf.

love it.

thanks for the comments

[Trunky]

[DRB]

Take a look at this. This is what I have followed.

http://www.cider.org.uk/sulphite.html

[sleepygonzales]

If you want to try that then make sure the sg is less than 1.005 if you intend to bottle in strong crown capped bottles unless you are using strong champagne bottles in which case 1.010 will be just about safe. Ultimately it's doomed to fail I fear as the sugar will simply be consumed by the yeast which is sulphite resistant.

Why not just sweeten with sucralose (splenda)?

I've just finished todays pressings of Somerset cider apples (Dabinet, Harry masters Jersey, Yarlington Mill and some Browns) and the sg is 1.062 which will give an abv of 8.2%, I would not want to make stronger cider!


Picking up on some of your earlier questions:

Air kills cider, keep all vessels topped up to the brim to exclude air, particulary after the fermentation has slowed down.

Yeast is free if you want, just sulphite at 50ppm and wait, fermentation will start in less than a week (the yeast is inside the apples).

For cider made from desert fruit I have tried Lalvin 71B which really reduces the acidity, a blend I pressed way back in August used this and it's coming along nicely.

Why not search out some lower acid cider apples (bittersweets would be ideal) and blend with the sharp cider that you have?

Thanks for the answers, and tips! Ive not made cider before so all info is appreciated. My sg was 1.050. About 5% i think? So i could do with a bit more of a kick.

Take a look at this. This is what I have followed.

http://www.cider.org.uk/sulphite.html

Thanks for that, thats really handy.

[sleepygonzales]

Why not search out some lower acid cider apples (bittersweets would be ideal) and blend with the sharp cider that you have?

know where i can get any?

[Trunky]

[Trunky]

[DRB]

My point of that link was to show that if he wanted to use wild yeast for fermentation and not use a cultured yeast and wanted to be a bit cautious ,adding sulphite as shown in table for partial yeast kill gives the good yeast more of a chance than the bad to take hold of fermentation. if left alone without added sulphite you would get more complex taste in the cider but you also take a chance that the bad could be the one that ferments the juice instead of the good, so by doing it this way you get more flavour than the cultured but not as much as a wild yeast ferntation without added sulphite although you are doing a wild yeast ferment.