cider champagne

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nezbleu

cider champagne

Post by nezbleu » Wed Sep 20, 2017 4:46 pm

hi - new to this forum and this brewing ..

i saw jamie and jimmy cider champagne on chan4.
as i've loads of apples and prefer a very dry sparkling drink like champagne.. was interested in trying this.

need a few pointers tho.

OK - so you make the cider - from juice ..add yeast ferment etc..leave

then on bottling he added sugar and champagne yeast.

now ive looked at all recipes and found it hard to get definite on this.

my ideas are to ferment cider using a cider yeast till fermentation stopped - then ( and this is only what ive found on champagne/method traditonalle sites) prime bottles with 12g sugar and 0.3g champagne yeast.. and obviously in heavy champagne bottles with stopper and wire...

does this sound right???

oldbloke
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Re: cider champagne

Post by oldbloke » Wed Sep 20, 2017 5:31 pm

I prime cider at about 5g/500ml, 12g sounds like a lot for 700ml. Might be right though. Champers is fizzier than most ciders.

Some people reckon at least some cider yeasts are the same strain as champagne yeasts, and there'll be live yeast left when you bottle so you shouldn't really need to add more then, though it would be a belt'n'braces safeguard - especially if you ferment it ALL the way out so there's not much live yeast left.

Working with shop juices rather than juice from real apples, the most champagne-like flavour I ever got was using an ale yeast. Odd but true...

Real champagne has a complicated thing where they keep the bottles upside down and release the seal at some point(s) to blow the dead yeast out. If your yeast compacts nicely at the bottom of the bottle I wouldn't worry about that.

Go for it. Even if it's not exactly what you intended it'll be a nice tipple

jaroporter
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Re: cider champagne

Post by jaroporter » Thu Sep 21, 2017 11:03 am

just to jump between the advertspeak, if you ferment just applejuice then you're most likely to come out in the 5-7% abv range i'd think, and will get a very dry sparkling "cider" once primed and bottled. if you're hoping for something with a strength similar to fizzy wine then you will probably have to add some sugar to the ferment.

if you ferment with champagne yeast or just made a standard strength cider you wont need to add any more at bottling (unless you've left it for a long time perhaps). if you used an ale yeast at winestrength then adding some champagne yeast at bottling would probably be easy insurance. personally i'd stir the sugar and for sure the yeast in to the bulk product before bottling, rather than individual bottles, but others may have reasonable preferences for doing it the other way..
dazzled, doused in gin..

nezbleu

Re: cider champagne

Post by nezbleu » Sun Sep 24, 2017 2:27 pm

can I ask another question? can you use a Camden tablet on initial cider after fermenting - then after 24 hours bottle and use the champagne yeast and sugar... or do I just go with the initial cider thats fermented???

thanks

oldbloke
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Re: cider champagne

Post by oldbloke » Sun Sep 24, 2017 11:53 pm

You want the Campden to kill the original yeast so the new yeast can do the bottle conditioning?
Campden alone won't kill yeast - you need to combine it with potassium sorbate. One puts the live cells to sleep; the other stops them reproducing. Or something.

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Crastney
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Re: cider champagne

Post by Crastney » Wed Oct 04, 2017 6:46 pm

most of what you can buy that's called 'cider yeast' is also variously called 'champagne yeast' - Lalvin EC-1118 is the normal one I use. it does the job, you don't need any extra on bottling.
add priming sugar at the higher end will give more sparkle.
yes you can do what they do for champagne - leave the bottles to condition on a rack that's tilted downwards towards the cork, use hollow corks for this bit. after two weeks for conditioning, freeze the top end of the bottle (you can use a bucket with lots of salty ice in - which should be a few degrees below zero but still liquid, without upending it first, then uncork, take out the frozen plug of yeast, top up with brandy, and re-cork with proper cork and cage. the added brandy will up the ABV a bit nearer wine levels.

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