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May 27, 2011 21:02:53 GMT
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You didn't need to Campden tab it unless you want to sweeten it with sugar Some (Becky's share) will be sweetened. I appear to have 5 different gallons of experiment on the go (now in the attic) all at once now. I must have got over excited! Cider-racked off, waiting to clear before bottling Vimto alcopop, still going slowly. I reckon the preservatives have slowed it down, though not stopped it Apple and blackcurrent drink is a few days in and has been loaded with sugar to get it to around 11%. Somewhere between a cider based drink and a fruit wine. I used a litre of apple juice, a litre of high juice cordial (45% juice blackcurrant ribena type thing), arseloads of sugar and topped up with water... And tonight I put on two more gallons of cider with the final litre of apple juice substituted for 'forest fruits juice drink' in one and 'raspberry and cranberry juice drink' in the other. I've moved to Youngs Cider Yeast for these as well. Still total experimentation and getting to understand the processes involved.
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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May 29, 2011 10:19:07 GMT
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I've put finings in the perry ;D
Ben, I think I can recommend the Youngs wine yeast. It seems to sit in a really dense sediment at the bottom and drops out nice and quickly. Just as well because I bought a huge tub of it ;D
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May 30, 2011 20:01:59 GMT
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I also have a huge tub of it so will see how I get along with it (is it wrong to make a cultural observation that Wilkos only stock mega high alcohol yeast? I'm not complaining ;D ) My cider cleared totally within 4 or 5 days. I've just bottled it and am drinking some now. It's strong, quite dry, and only very slightly sparkling. Really happy with it. Certainly a positive starting point to improve on if my first attempt is totally drinkable. I'll leave it as long as I can to drink the rest to see how it ages but my willpower is poor.
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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May 31, 2011 11:35:12 GMT
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Racked off the Vimto wine/alcopop and had a quick taste. Ended up down the drain ;D
Hadn't fermented down very far at all (from 1.050 to 1.020) so was horrendously sweet, and tasted really chemically which may be my fault from when I steralised, but I can't say I'll be doing it again in a hurry when proper fruit juice stuff seems to be successful.
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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May 31, 2011 11:45:45 GMT
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Well... thought I should add my super cider. It was originally made as a bit of a dare by a friend after my normal 7% stuff... and now its kinda expanded on the original concept. Not made any this year as ive still got 20L maturing That was a apple one the left and a apple and raspberry cider on the right. Ive also made a mix berry cider, blackberry and blueberry one.... however the reason they are super is that I was dared to see how strong I can make them.... well my last batch worked out at around 18-21% but goes down just like a fruit juice. Its not a cider to drink on your own
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Last Edit: May 31, 2011 11:46:48 GMT by Jackman
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May 31, 2011 14:22:14 GMT
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This has all got me thinking, which is not a usually a good thing. I have many litres of two year old, weak naturally made cider. I didn't use yeast for the most part, so the natural yeasts must not have been up to the job. None of it has turned sour, so what would happen if I got some wine makers yeast and added sugar then put it all in a big barrell? Would it still be cider? I know that the amount of alchohol would not kill yeast meant for 5% - 10% so it would produce some kind of drink.
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May 31, 2011 18:54:32 GMT
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Lidl juice, and a mix of chillis, cardomen, cinnamon stick, cloves and brown sugar and left for a few weeks made a loverly spiced cider for Xmas. Only made a gallon as an experiment, but was worthwhile so this year, at least a few more will be made
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I dumped the perry in the end. There was so much pulp in it even with finings it was just making a sludgy mess and what was clearer tasted like washing powder. Stuck on a Wurzel's Orange Wine instead. If you google it, it seems to be a popular one in the homebrew circles, so I'll be interested to see how it comes out
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This thread just makes me think of this
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You didn't need to Campden tab it unless you want to sweeten it with sugar From the advice i have been given, i have been told to prime my bottles with a teaspoon of sugar. There was no mention of adding anything else to prevent further fermentation. Should i think about adding campden tablets when bottling? Thanks
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You didn't need to Campden tab it unless you want to sweeten it with sugar From the advice I have been given, I have been told to prime my bottles with a teaspoon of sugar. There was no mention of adding anything else to prevent further fermentation. Should I think about adding campden tablets when bottling? Thanks Personal tastes.. Priming with a teaspoon of sugar is to encourage a final bit of fermentation in the bottle to create CO2 and hence extra fizz so you definitely wouldn't want to kill off the yeast with a campden tablet. Being a Somerset boy I quite like flatter ciders so haven't been priming. The small amount of CO2 bubbliness that you get from not bothering to degas is about right for me. I was going to 'back sweeten' (adding sugar that won't be fermented out to sweeten the flavour) some of mine so used a campden tab (1 crushed per gallon). My tastes don't seem especially typical of turbo cider makers though, most seem to prime for extra fizz. EDIT: The other thing you may hear people doing is priming, leaving for a day or so to add fizz, then killing the yeast with cold (much easier in the winter if you have a full fridge..) so you get added sweetness and more bubbles.
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Last Edit: Jun 2, 2011 11:31:12 GMT by ben711200
...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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Just out of interest, do any of you guys drink beer? If so, why don't you brew it? Very easy and probably cheaper than cider because the base ingredient is water rather than fruit juice. I'll have to take some photos of my next brew as I feel that the beer brewers are being under-represented on this thread! I'm also surprised that nobody seems to be aiming for a carbonated end product. Nothing quite as good as the sound of that CO2 escaping when you uncap a CROWN seal, followed by a lovely cold glass of beer with a rich foamy head!
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From the advice I have been given, I have been told to prime my bottles with a teaspoon of sugar. There was no mention of adding anything else to prevent further fermentation. Should I think about adding campden tablets when bottling? Thanks Personal tastes.. Priming with a teaspoon of sugar is to encourage a final bit of fermentation in the bottle to create CO2 and hence extra fizz so you definitely wouldn't want to kill off the yeast with a campden tablet. Being a Somerset boy I quite like flatter ciders so haven't been priming. The small amount of CO2 bubbliness that you get from not bothering to degas is about right for me. I was going to 'back sweeten' (adding sugar that won't be fermented out to sweeten the flavour) some of mine so used a campden tab (1 crushed per gallon). My tastes don't seem especially typical of turbo cider makers though, most seem to prime for extra fizz. EDIT: The other thing you may hear people doing is priming, leaving for a day or so to add fizz, then killing the yeast with cold (much easier in the winter if you have a full fridge..) so you get added sweetness and more bubbles. Thank you for the reply. As a fellow Somerset boy i do also enjoy a still cider. I think i will experiment with a few bottles primed and the rest not, then see how it affects the taste/sweetness/fizz. I will post my results after the initial taste test! Cheers
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Macoli
Part of things
Posts: 181
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Just out of interest, do any of you guys drink beer? If so, why don't you brew it? Very easy and probably cheaper than cider because the base ingredient is water rather than fruit juice. I'll have to take some photos of my next brew as I feel that the beer brewers are being under-represented on this thread! I'm also surprised that nobody seems to be aiming for a carbonated end product. Nothing quite as good as the sound of that CO2 escaping when you uncap a CROWN seal, followed by a lovely cold glass of beer with a rich foamy head! I'm an occasional beer brewer, I've been brewing since 2004 using kits but occasionally with some added hops for more hoppyness. My last brew was a Belgian Grand Cru style job. Not as good as my first attempt at the Grand Cru, but still did the job! ^^^Happy yeast... ;D
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Last Edit: Jun 2, 2011 16:26:46 GMT by Macoli
Wanted: mk2 Cavalier front valence
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Just out of interest, do any of you guys drink beer? If so, why don't you brew it? Very easy and probably cheaper than cider because the base ingredient is water rather than fruit juice. I'll have to take some photos of my next brew as I feel that the beer brewers are being under-represented on this thread! I've not had a home brew beer that I've been satisfied with yet. I think it's the nature of the kits. I do really want to try and make a proper brew with hops and barley though. I'll need a barrel for it though. I'm also surprised that nobody seems to be aiming for a carbonated end product. Nothing quite as good as the sound of that CO2 escaping when you uncap a CROWN seal, followed by a lovely cold glass of beer with a rich foamy head! I quite like a flat cider ;D I'm going to make a vessel for adding fizz though. Going to make something up with a tyre valve and a CO2 bike pump. Like a ghetto soda stream if you like
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I've done a few beer kits. The cheap as chips ones in wilco are ok if you just wanna get drunk, but you need to get the decent kits for nice beer.
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Well, in my experience so far, I am very much a novice beer brewer and have only used kits so far, but the quality is improving. The first three brews which I did were fairly poor, the fourth was okay and the fifth one (a dark ale kit) was the best so far. Here's my quick tips from one amateur to another.
1. Use good water. Tap water is not good enough, at least Adelaide tap water! I've switched to spring water and you can really taste the difference.
2. Cleanliness!! The cleanliness of your brew decides the quality of the product. Sterilize everything, to the extreme! Then rinse thoroughly.
3. Small bottles are too much work. I only use brown glass bottles of 500mL or larger.
4. Don't over-prime the bottles with white sugar! Exploding glass grenades hurt. Cleaning up the beery glass-shard mess afterwards adds insult to injury.
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Some updates from me..
I've decided that TurboCider is the best thing ever.
To make 5 litres costs about four quid, which is about 45p a pint I think (including all ingredients, sterilising stuff..) It tastes really pleasant It can be made any strength you want (I tend to stick at around 8 or 9%, starting gravity of 1060ish) It goes from Morrissons Value Apple Juice to very tasty drink in less than 2 weeks I appear not to get a hangover or unpleasant toilet times when drinking it
Recent ammendments have led me to use a sucralose based sweetener, such as Splenda to backsweeten and sugar to prime. A couple tablespoons of sweetener for a 5 litre demijohn doesn't make it sweet, but does take the 'edge' off.
3 litres of cheapy apple juice + 1 litre of poncy fruit juice is about the right quantity to make a really nice flavoured cider. I used an Asda 'Summer Fruit' one, which was 100% fruit but was unfortunately partly pulp. It clumped and settled fine by itself though and is dangerously nice.
I'm currently trying out the addition of tea for tannin. I don't know what it will add, but most people seem to think it tastes 'better'..
It's very quickly coming to a point where 5 litre batches are annoyingly small ;D
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...proper medallion man chest wig motoring.
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My efforts from last weekend
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Jun 10, 2011 12:28:27 GMT
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Okay, I've found some pics of my first ever brew! They're hosted on facebook so please let me know if they don't work. The brew. Keeping it warm! The brew was named 'Mr. Bubbly' and was kept rugged up at night. Bottling day. I can't remember how many bottles this brew yielded but it's generally about 60 stubbies. Lots of bottles to clean, sterilise, fill, prime and cap!
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