My cider as it stands. Help please.

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My cider as it stands. Help please.
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Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 9:01 am Post subject: My cider as it stands. Help please.

My cider as it stands

I've got three of these containers with what will hopefully be drinkable cider one day

I made one container full one week and two the following week and set them working with airlocks fitted to the top.

The first container stopped working after three weeks and looks rich and very clear. I got a straw into it last night and had a slurp. I could drink it but it might be described as a little on the tart side .

I've been advised to drop an artificial sweetener into each bottle as I rack it off to make it more palatable. Is that a good idea ?

Now to the other two containers which were made a week later .
These only worked for around 10 days . They look and taste nothing like the other one. They remain cloudy and not as caustic as the first one. When I tasted it, it seemed sweeter but not very alcohoic. I've been given some white wine yeast to reactivate it.
Is that a good idea and if it is what do I do ? I've got 12 gallons of this stuff after my first attempt at cider making that I don't want to have to pour away. Help please !

@Calli

Joined: 03 Jul 2005
Posts: 1682
Location: Galway

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 9:36 am Post subject:

On the late two, are they warm enough?, - its possible the fermentation has stopped and adding yeast will restart it and turn sugary taste into alcohol. if not sweet and you can smell a bready yeasty smell - add sugar to restart.

If you add half tsp sugar when bottling ( grolsch bottles best!) you will get a light fizz as the fermentation restarts!!!

As for pouring any away - no chance - all can be rescued! I have only ever thrown one batch away - mostly because OH persuaded me to try beer - even the dogs wouldn't drink it and the bottles exploded so out it went on the compost heap!

Nakipa

Joined: 01 Apr 2006
Posts: 20
Location: France

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 10:27 am Post subject:

This a real coincidence as I have made cider (or tried to).
I made one 20 litre barrel and one 35 litre barrel.
I added just the juice from my apples which I put through the juicer.
The 20 litre one fizzed for about 8 days and then stopped. It is now clear and very sour and not very palatable. The 35 litres fizzed and frothed for about 48 hours and then stopped and is very cloudy and just now tastes like apple juice.

I have managed to get some wine yeast sent over from the UK so I can add that but I am not sure how much sugar I should add to it.

Any advice is very welcome.

Nakipa

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 10:55 am Post subject:

I'm a beginner like yourself. Unless anyone says otherwise, I wasn't going to add anymore sugar and work upon the principal that some thing had killed the yeast off. I'm just going to try adding wine yeast in the belief that there is sufficient sugar from the fruit in there waiting to be turned into alcohol.
I had some bottled cider in Brittany a few years ago and I couldn't drink it . From memory it tasted very much like the stuff from my first brew.

dpack

Joined: 02 Jul 2005
Posts: 45521
Location: yes

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 11:08 am Post subject:
take some of the stopped must ,add a bit of sugar or better still invert syrup (boil sugar/water with a bit of citric acid ),add wine yeast when that is fermenting strongly add it to the batch i dont like sweeteners but its what they do with the likes of frosty jack etc i often used to get around over sharp cider by adding blackcurrant cordial when pouring or half and half with sweet ginger beer

Nakipa

Joined: 01 Apr 2006
Posts: 20
Location: France

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 12:57 pm Post subject:
How much sugar should I add? Is it pounds or ounces? Nakipa

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 4:40 pm Post subject:

Nakipa wrote:

How much sugar should I add? Is it pounds or ounces?

Non-expert trying to help.

To restart the ferment with yeast, take a cupful of the existing brew, dissolve a couple of teaspoonfuls of sugar and stir in the packet (5g?) of yeast. Put it somewhere warm until it starts frothing vigorously. Then add it back, with mixing, to the bulk of the brew, where hopefully it will continue working and multiplying...

You can sweeten dry cider in the glass with sugar, or apple juice.
If you do it in the bottle, its good to make sure the yeast is all dead and gone, otherwise you may have an explosion. PET (plastic) lemonade (and tonic water) bottles can take an enormous pressure it would seem... a bottle of elderflower cordial, forgotten at the back of the fridge, had turned itself into some very impressive champagne...

But probably the best time to add sugar (likely by the kilo) is to the juice before starting the fermentation. An *hydrometer* would help you judge the amount to produce the desired alcohol/sweetness endpoint.

Clarity. Half a teaspoonful of pectinase enzyme, added with the yeast has given me a couple of demijons of impressively bright clear cider...

gil
Downsizer Moderator

Joined: 08 Jun 2005
Posts: 18409

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 5:11 pm Post subject:

Bodger and Nakipa : wine yeast is more tolerant of alcohol than beer/cider yeast, which is why it is good for restartnig a possibly stuck ferment. But it makes a stronger brew, so you may end up with something more like an apple wine, and it may take a couple of weeks more at least.

Apples are high in pectin, so Dougal's suggestion of using pectic enzyme (1 teaspoon per gallon) to clear your cider is a sound one.

Sweetening up the thin, tart stuff : use 2-4oz sugar dissolved in 2-4 fl oz water per gallon, and keep the cider under airlock in case it starts re-fermenting. Assuming it doesn't, give it a few days (5-7), to mix, then taste. If still not sweet enough, repeat process. Do not go adding larger amounts at once, as there is a fine line between too-dry, just right, and too sweet. It doesn't take much added sugar. Bodger : I can see the point of adding artificial sweetener so as not to risk restarting fermentation, but using real sugar will add a bit more body too.

Cathryn

Joined: 16 Jul 2005
Posts: 19856
Location: Ceredigion

Posted: Wed Sep 27, 06 10:01 pm Post subject:
I don't like the taste of artificial sweetener Bodger

James

Joined: 11 Jan 2006
Posts: 2866
Location: York

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 06 10:05 am Post subject:

Call me a stickler for tradition, but I would NEVER add sugar to my cider, let alone sweetener. Anyway, sweeteners make you fire blanks.

If the cider you have is sharp or tart, store it. Some ciders are best drunk young, while others should be matured. If after storage the cider is still tart, make some cider from sweeter, less acid apples (made from eating apples), then blend the two.

You should expect your cider to be a dry, sharp & crisp but not so tart it makes you wince.

Its also worth remember that you MUST let the apples stand until the first one start to rot before you press for cider juice. This breaks many of the acids down, and you get a much cleaner, less tart cider.

The yeast may have died because of competition from other yeasts/ bacterias. Did you sterilise the juice or was it used “live”?
For this stuck fermentation, I’d add a campden tablet to each gallon, let this stand for a few days, put it somewhere cold to drop all existing yeast out of suspension, then re-pitch with an activated vigorous champagne yeast- Gervin strain no 3 or Gervin varietal strain C.

Also, sorry to disagree with regarding the pectin thingy but once you’ve started a fermentation, it’s much harder to get rid of a pectin haze during or after fermentation. It must be added before the main fermentation, or during the early stages of fermentation.

If you treat your fruit correctly, and press the fruit correctly, you should never have cloudy cider, and you shouldn’t need chemicals.

Let the fruit stand- until the first ones start to rot, remove the very rotten ones, blend the rest and press. If you want a cider for storing, add a campden tablet per gallon, then next day pitch champagne yeast. If you want young cider, miss out the campden tablet, and pitch the champagne yeast straight in. If you live in France and intend to make calvados from you cider, you must not use sulphide (….so I’ve heard…)

A word on yeasts- nowerdays, ALL yeasts can easily ferment to at least 10%, even bread yeast (try it- it really can!). So if you’ve got a 7% apple juice, this’ll ferment to dryness even with bread yeast. The real difference is how cleanly it ferments, at what temperature it works best, how it reacts to other yeasts, and how well it settles out after fermentation. I use champagne yeast because it ferments vigrously, can out-compete othe yeasts, produces a very ‘clean’ alcohol (ie not many pair- drop esters), and drops a firm sediment when finished, leaving a nice clear drink.
If I don’t add a campden table, I sometimes ‘double pitch’- adding bread yeast to start with, and champagne yeast after a day or two. This is because bread yeast is designed to ferment extremely fast, and can create an anoxic environment rapidly, while the champagne yeast will kill the bread yeast off and continue with a higher quality taste profile.

Last edited by James on Thu Sep 28, 06 10:35 am; edited 1 time in total

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 06 10:25 am Post subject:
Thanks James , that sounds like good advice. Will store the sharp cider if I can keep my hands off it for long enough and use the method you describe for the later stuff. We did let the apples stand as you say and I wish you'd let me know about the sweeteners and firing blanks four bratts ago

Blacksmith

Joined: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 5025
Location: Berkshire

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 06 2:54 pm Post subject:
Thanks James.............. think i need to let my apples mature a bit longer, still quite hard and green

dougal

Joined: 15 Jan 2005
Posts: 7184
Location: South Kent

Posted: Thu Sep 28, 06 3:14 pm Post subject:

James wrote:

... Also, sorry to disagree with regarding the pectin thingy but once you’ve started a fermentation, it’s much harder to get rid of a pectin haze during or after fermentation. It must be added before the main fermentation, or during the early stages of fermentation.

If you treat your fruit correctly, and press the fruit correctly, you should never have cloudy cider, and you shouldn’t need chemicals.

... If you live in France and intend to make calvados from you cider, you must not use sulphide (….so I’ve heard…)

Glad to learn that pectinase needs to go in at the beginning. That's actually what I've done myself!
Previously, I've made cider from clear (commercial) juice that took an absolute age to clear, so I've just started to use enzyme. And the first batch with just a pinch of it is dramatically clearer, dramatically quicker.

(And BTW, it'd be sulphiTe, rather than sulphiDe - which would be a rather different kettle of fish!)

Blacksmith

Joined: 25 Jan 2005
Posts: 5025
Location: Berkshire

Posted: Fri Sep 29, 06 8:56 am Post subject:
I have made cider from the John Bull kits ( £11.odd for 44 pints of "cooking" cider or 33 pints of fighting tackle !) Never had a bad batch, always get a faint smell of sulphur when I open a bottle.

Bodger

Joined: 23 May 2006
Posts: 13524

Posted: Fri Sep 29, 06 9:05 am Post subject:
But my favourite cider is the one on my avatar and thats cloudy !

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