Turbo Cider Recipes, Methods and Taste Collection.

[Barticus]

With great inspiration from reading the forum(s) I have had a bit experiment as well.

One concoction involved 2 jars of Raspberry Jam, 1 litre Ribena Strawberry concentrate, 300ml tea, 600g sugar, 2 litres of boiled water. The SG was 1110 and the FG 1000 giving around 12% alcohol. It tastes like shit and the alcohol is very overpowering. Anything to be done or simply down the sink?

Just a word to anyone in the same boat.

This was destined for the sink last Monday until a bit of Pinto advice resulted in splitting the thing into two dj's and topping up with water and white grape juice. Today I have 20 bottles of a very nice tasting drink.

There's always hope.

[Pinto]

Another batch in the mix ... and an excuse to get the new brew fridge on the go

Cranberry & Raspberry TC (20l Batch)

18l Lidl Apple Nectar
2l Diet Cranberry & Raspberry Juice (diet stuff contains sucralose so should help with the sweetness)
0,25l Tannin Soln. (Decided to try wine tannin in this batch as opposed to tea... tbh its the same stuff ! - 4Tsp)
0.25l Pectolase Soln. (4 tsp added)
600g Seedless Raspberry Jam (Dissolved in 1l apple juice with sugar)
300g Granulated Sugar

Youngs Super Wine Yeast (4Tsp) - Pitched at 25 Deg C
Fermenting @ 18 Degrees (Controlled)
OG : 1.048
FG (Est) : 0.998
ABV (Est) : 6.8%

Looking for more raspberry and less sharp edge for this one (one of the ladies at a forthcoming BBQ) so I'll prime with Polish Raspberry Syrup instead of sugar and add 1.5 Tsp Splenda / 500ml

Results to follow

[Pinto]

[oldbloke]

Latest turbo tastings:
TC with mango instead of my usual cranberry - slightly odd to my taste, but She likes it. May age into something more interesting (still pretty young) but what with the pulp problems as well prolly won't do mango again
TurboPerry using Meridian pear concentrate - I like this quite a lot but She's not as enthusiastic; again, a bit of age may improve it, quite a lot with this one. The cost of the concentrate is a bit off-putting so unless aging turns it into something quite special, probably also off the 'regulars' list

[oldbloke]

Latest turbo tastings:
TC with mango instead of my usual cranberry - slightly odd to my taste, but She likes it. May age into something more interesting (still pretty young) but what with the pulp problems as well prolly won't do mango again
TurboPerry using Meridian pear concentrate - I like this quite a lot but She's not as enthusiastic; again, a bit of age may improve it, quite a lot with this one. The cost of the concentrate is a bit off-putting so unless aging turns it into something quite special, probably also off the 'regulars' list

Now those 2 have aged a bit, we both like both.
The perry is nice enough that even though it's not cheap I may do it again after all.
The mangoTC has moved from slightly-weird to that's-interesting and should improve more. The pulp thing still puts me off that, but if I find a less pulpy mango juice I might use it again - in lower concentration though - and/or maybe straining /before/ it goes in

[oldbloke]

Just bottled my latest TC, taste off the syphon says it's gonna be very good
0.5l Suma concentrate AJ, 1/2l Euroshopper AJ, 1/2l strong Yorkshire Gold tea, 1/2 pomegranite juice
tsp+ nutrient, 1/2pkt Young's cider yeast, make up to gallon with water

[Pinto]

WIth my ongoing conversion to AG on the beer front, I've not played with a TC since my "explosive" 9 Vol Cranberry & Raspberry batch a few months ago. However, with the festive season approaching, I've just bought another 26 litres of aldi nectar, the idea being to make 2x 14l Batches, one being my "Cinnamonator" Recipe, and the other being a more or less straight TC.

But I dont do straight TCs .... which meant carousal of the juice Aisle at tesco for inspiration. It was there I came across something on special offer...so I decided to go for it ( Like OB's Pomegranete juice "rounder", I think this one is very complimentary of the "appleness" and will add that little bit of missing body and ooomph...so without further ado.....)

Apple and LYCHEE TC (14 l Batch)

12l Lidl Apple Nectar
1.5l Lychee Juice (seems to have quite a high pulp content - hoping its not going to be like the lidl pear nectar tho !)
0,25l Wine Tannin Soln.
0.25l Pectolase Soln. (hopefully going some way to combating the pulp)
150g Granulated Sugar

I have high hopes for the Lychee juice - I'll keep people posted

[Pinto]

Well, its all in - must admit its probably the nicest smelling brew i've made - lychee really comes through well. One a down note tho... I have no Idea on my OG dropped my trial jar and I now have a two piece hydrometer !

Oh well, more excuse to go to the brewing shop

[Bernaaard]

Hi Guys,

Long time lurker, first time TC maker this morning. Picked up a couple of DJ's in Wilko's
along with 8l of Morrisons saver 100% from concentrate juice.

Cobbled it all together using the following details and it has started bubbling away like mad. Either i did it
right or i have created a monster.

Time will tell i guess but would really appreciate any feedback from you more experienced Joe's ?

Sensible cider (more sensible than its brother anyway)
Starting Gravity - 1046
Preferred Final Gravity - 0.990
Predicted ABV = 7.35%
Sugar - 150g
1 tsp yeast nutrient
7g allinson easy bake brewers yeast
1 cup of strong tea made with 3 teabags
Carbonate in the 5l PET expanding bottle topped with apple juice to sweeten

Thudercloud (cos it will be a bit cloudy)
Starting Gravity - 1064
Preferred Final Gravity - 0.990
Predicted ABV = 9.71 %
Sugar - 350g
1 tsp yeast nutrient
7g gervin universal wine yeast
1 cup of strong tea made with 3 teabags
Decant into scrumpy bottles and leave flat topped with Canderel to sweeten

[Pinto]

Not looking too bad, you seem to have the basics down well on your first few brews. One thing I would say tho...

....7g allinson easy bake brewers yeast....

Tad of an oxymoron - its either bakers yeast OR brewers yeast - quite different beasts (and the fact is says "Allinsons" on the tin means its bakers yeast to my eye.) Your use of bakers yeast is likely to end up sweet as bakers yeast isn't ideally suited to conversion of sugars to alcohol, nor does it have a high resistance to our hallowed ethanol so it dies quicker. Bakers yeast however DOES make a lot of Carbon Dioxide ( perfect for proving a loaf ) so expect some serious krausen action and a machine-gun airlock How come you used a proper brewing strain of yeast on your other recipie and not the first ?

Adding sugar is a moot step amongst TC'ers - good for a high FG but some feel it makes the brew closer to sparkling apple wine than a cider - although this might be to your tastes. As a rule of thumb (and to save you falling down blind drunk ) you'll find that just the juice itself should be good for 5-6% abv, which is where most good ciders lay, strength wise.

Main thing... have fun !

[Bernaaard]

Well, the krausan has dissapeared on both brews and both seem to be bubbling away like noones business. If anything the brewers yeast seams to be doing
better than the wine yeast.

Frankly i am besotted by watching both and seeing them both chugging away is mesmerising. I am finding reasons to go into the kitchen to check on them,

I appear to have two hugely succesfu brews at the moment, but i guess time wil ltell.

[Bernaaard]

hi Pinto,

Just thought i would cover all bases and try one bakers yeast as i have seen so many others do on this forum, and one higher tollerance yeast
with the one with higher sugar level to see if i can come up with a stronger brew is all.

Figured having one standard and one higher ABV would be good. Have i done something wrong by any chance ?

[Pinto]

Not wrong, just different

I cant say how using bakers yeast will affect the flavour, but it will be sweeter and lower abv - but it might be a flavour masterpiece for all I know - I've only ever used bakers yeast in bread

I've seen a lot of mead recipies that used bakers yeast, but I think its because they have ancient roots and brewers strains hadn't been bred selectively or seperately from the wild yeasts used back then so in this case it would be more true to form.

Keep us posted how it turns out

[pied cock]

hi folks a bit of advice /comments please did my first 2 TCS A TAKE ON DREADSKINS SORT OF


20 LITRES ALDI JUICE FROM CONCENTRATE
2 JARS OF ALDI CLEAR HONEY
7 oz DEMERERA SUGAR
2 TEASPOONS OF CINNAMON
6 GRANNYSMITHS SHREDDED TO BITS SKIN OFF
6 TYPHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOS IN 400ML
1 WILKOS GERVIN ALE YEAST
1 T SPOON NUTRIENT

SG ON BOTH 1050

NO 1 had a tap on fermenter so when bubbling started to slow down after 10 days tried a pint 5.3% so left it going but carried on drinking it straight from fermenter well it got stronger but sharper n tarty towards the end add lemonade fine finished it off with a funny face .


no 2 bottled it today straight into 2 litre pop bottles FG 996 abv 7.2% just filled bottles gave them a good shake let pressure out tried a good bit now with lemonade its fine but ithink the sweet spot has been missed ,

so if i did that brew again or my next one could i kill it/stop it around the 5.5%mark it has good body n depth to it?????????




anyway just did my 3rd brew tonight

13 1.5lt lidl juice
10 oz brewing sugar wilkos
1 wine yeast wilkos
2 tspoons nutrient
1 jar lidl honey
4 typhoooooooooooo tbags

SG.....1050

cheers

[Pinto]

It'll tend to ferment to dryness anyway so you'll tend to have a dry cider - you bring it back to sweetness using a non fermentable sweetener like sucraose (splenda) or stevia extract. You can also find "diet" versions of some juices in Lidls, and hence these already have a quantity of sweetener in them so go some way towards a sweeter brew. If you're finding your ABV to be high, you need to cut out the sugar/honey additions as just juice on its own will give 5-6% abv - extra fermentables really arent needed.

Body and depth..... now thats a different ball game with cider. I've seen three possible methods - (1) Add glycerine (cooking stuff) at the bottling stage (2) Add Malto-dextrine to the ferment instead of sugar and (3) Add a small amount of malt or malt extract to the brew (although technically its the same as (2) as its the malto-dextrines in the malt that will give body and mouthfeel; you might as well add pure MD and not have the unusual "flavours" a malt would bring to the party)