First TC attempt from Down Under

[Woodchip]

6 litres apple juice
275ml of apple and boysenberry juice
2 cups of strong black tea
cider yeast

SG is 1046

9.1g of sugar per l in the apple juice and 29.4g in the boysenberry juice. 575.4g of sugar in 6.5 litres.

Just finished mixing it now and it's in the cupboard to see what happens. As a "wort" it smells divine!!! Anyone know how I can estimate a FG?

[Woodchip]

It's bubbling away nicely and smells amazing still. The next couple of weeks are going to go by so slowly!!!!

[oldbloke]

I never bother with gravity readings for TC, I just ferment to dry - bottle when it clears - and calc from the known sugars.

[Pinto]

Depending on your yeast choice, the FG should be between 1.010 and 0.996 - proper cider and wine yeasts will go sub-1.000 whilst a beer or ale yeast will stay higher.

[Woodchip]

Depending on your yeast choice, the FG should be between 1.010 and 0.996 - proper cider and wine yeasts will go sub-1.000 whilst a beer or ale yeast will stay higher.

Cheers Pinto. It is brewcraft cider yeast.

[Woodchip]

I never bother with gravity readings for TC, I just ferment to dry - bottle when it clears - and calc from the known sugars.

Any idea how I do that? Complete noob to brewing (made 1 kit so far).

[Pinto]

if you have an OG, easier to plug it into this site...

http://www.rooftopbrew.net/abv.php

assuming your cider yeast goes to at least 1.000 (dryness) then you should be looking at an ABV of 6 - 6.5 % (which is where most ciders end up) In future brews, you can modify the sugar content with things like honey, sugar, golden syrup, jam, etc and get a range of abv's (I have some in storage called "Sui-cider" which I made with 1.3kg of dextrose and garvin gv4 hi-alcohol yeast @ 5l brewlength - made a shade over 20% abv.....)

[oldbloke]

I never bother with gravity readings for TC, I just ferment to dry - bottle when it clears - and calc from the known sugars.

Any idea how I do that? Complete noob to brewing (made 1 kit so far).

I read off the sugars from the carton/tin/whatever and then use this:
http://www.brsquared.org/wine/CalcInfo/HydSugAl.htm

Rule of thumb, pound of sugar in a gallon -> 5%, which is the same as 100g/litre->5%
Typical juices used in TC are a little over 100g/litre but if you use 0.5l tea for your tannin source, it's gonna bring it down to near enough 5%.
I don't feel a need to be more exact for TC.

For wines, use a hydrometer and do it properly, if you want to know the ABV. I've usually just stuck to published recipes though and taken it for granted it won't be too strong or weak.
This has meant a few have come out a wee bit strong.
Rule of thumb for wine, 1kg to 2.5lb in a gallon is about right for normal strength dry wine. If there's lots of fruit in there you have to adjust for its sugar content.

[oldbloke]

garvin gv4 hi-alcohol yeast

Do you find any off flavours from that yeast? Some of the high alc ones can ne a bit dodgy, I've heard, but GV4 seems to be marketed as a normal wine yeast that happens to be able to go high.
I've just used it in my experimental "spiced golden syrup notreallyMead"

[Pinto]

Not noticed any real off flavours, but the alcohol charecter is....assertive to say the least so probably covers a multitude of sins

I also ran the fermentation cold and slow (16 degrees) and it took nearly 5 weeks to complete so im hoping that kept the off's lower too. On another note... might I suggest that your GS brew be named "Meed" ? avoids upsetting the purists then ( and keep us posted on progress with it - i have a feeling that it'll make a nice brew in its own right, I love the GS flavour)

[Woodchip]

Day 4 and I get in after leaving it alone since 7 this morning (now 11.30pm) and thought I'd got a stuck ferment as there were no bubbles on the cider or through the trap. After a bit of mucking around I thought I'd check the gravity. It's shot down to 1002 after getting a heat pad yesterday.

It's not stuck, just slowed up.

[Woodchip]

Bottled after 4 days at 1002. It is a little murky as the boysenberry juice was cloudy. I had a sip before bottling and it tasted like a strange scrumpy. Nice, but strange.

[Woodchip]

Flat as a pancake, bit too much tannin but still quite tasty. Smells good and I love the colour. The cloudiness comes from the boysenberry juice, as it was very cloudy.

[oldbloke]

I generally allow 2weekswarm2weekscold conditioning, can take that long for the priming sugar to convert to fizz. Or 1week/1week minimum.
The tannin should mellow a bit.

[Woodchip]

Cheers oldbloke. I'll keep it in warm for a bit longer then and see if it gives it any life.

Still, it's a good scrumpy.