:)

[Trunky]

[Trunky]

[Trunky]

[beermonsta]

Good thread Trunky (cute puppies by the way - bit too wrinkly for me though!)
Can you run through the pressing side of the process for us. I presume its as simple as scratter the whole apples - I presume a kitchen juicer wouldn't be 'man enough' - is there another method other than a lump of wood for pounding or a garden shredder that would be suitable?
Next load a cloth with the pulp - where do you get the cloths from or what would make a suitable alternative? I noticed yours look very open weave - almost like sack material - would muslim cloth be too fine?
Do you load them by placing the cloth in a tray, fill with pulp, fold over loosley and then lift out of tray and place on the wood lattice (whats its propper name?). Then repeat etc.
From the TC threads I noticed people add tea/honey etc - I presume this isn't as necessary as the apples will have more natural tannins and flavour and obviously no need to artificially raise the alcohol.
fermentation - similar process to all grain? - primary to secondary? leave to clear naturally by cooling, prime as usual in bottles?
final question - yeast - would you recommend natural (and how long is 'normal' for fermentation to kick off) or will adding a wine yeast be fine?
anything else you would recommend? hints? tips? advice?
cheers, Ben

edit - forgot to ask, with TC people seem to throw the 'pulp' in for extra flavour, I presume this isn't done with the real deal?
edit No2 - Would you recommend using pectolase after scrattering and before pressing and should I worry about oxidisation (i.e. juice turning brown) at any stage?
edit No3 - campden tablets - i know what they do and how to use them but I have read people using them when making cider to kill off natural yeast/do a basic sanitisation - will they not kill off any added yeast as well?
and 'sweating' apples after picking - does this mean pick, and leave for 2-3 weeks to let the sugars naturally develop? - does anthing else need to be considered during this process - such as temperature, air flow, etc or will apples happiy ripen i.e. sweeten up by themselves without any intervention?

[Trunky]

[drmick]

in the process of acquiring my apples for this year - didn't manage to get any last year. So far got ~15Kg but should get another 50Kg or so over the next few weeks and then will juice them all at the same time - much smaller scale than most of you on here. Going to attempt a gallon or two of wine but the majority of them will be going for cider.

I am intending on hiring a press and might use a garden shredder I've got in the shed - not been used for a while but used to happily shred reasonably large branches so think it will be man enough to do a few kg of apples. Any suggestions on how to clean it prior to putting the apples through it? I suspect at the moment its quite filthy so would want to clean it before use.

[Trunky]

[drmick]

well I was planning on starting small but the apple numbers are growing, my main supplier (my uncle) said there should be lots to collect this weekend, no idea on variety but cookers not proper cider apples but should give something drinkable - I was speaking with him this evening and he said there were three houses near my Nan's house with trees laden with apples and might be going spare. My colleague from work said he could bring in a couple of bags of fallers every week if I wanted. And the girl I share an office with said she had a pear tree that was full of unwanted pears so some perry might be in order.

Thanks for the cleaning advice I will have a look at it this weekend and see how easy it will be to clean otherwise I'll hire one when I hire the cider press.

[Chiltern Brewer]

It's my first year with a proper mill and press - I made a few litres last year by pounding, pulp fermentation and straining - I have 4 gallons just starting to ferment.

I've used ~30Kg of fruit, a mix of the following: Williams Bon Chretien (desert pear - sweet), James Grieve (culinary/dessert apple - sweet sharp), Worcester Pearmain (dessert apple - sweet), Lady Henniker (culinary/dessert apple - sharp) and four different "wild apples" (one of which was very small and bitter so qualifies as a true crab apple?).

I tried to balance the sweetness of the Williams pear (about a third) with the sharpness from the apples and some tannin from the crab apples. The pressed juice certainly tasted lovely - SG was 1045. I've used some pectolase and sulphite and then pitched some Gervin No3 yesterday.

I'd like to do another pressing in about a month's time. The dessert fruit will be over but they'll be some more Lady Henniker and some other cookers (which I'll leave to mellow). Any tips on getting a good blend without access to true cider apples?

[Trunky]

[richie]

Ok so ive collected nearly all required apples, a mix of cooking and eating, press is made, shredder is sourced from hire shop(live in dublin so cant find a cheap second hand one).

This is what i THINK I should do next, once juice is collected I plan to kill off nat yeast with campden tab. and add a cider yeast. Once this cider yeast is added it should bubble/foam in container(but not under airlock) for a few days, once this stops I will rack off into gallon glass jars under airlock to ferment slowly.

Is this correct or is there anything im doing wrong.
ALSO when do i check for gravity and alcohol content.
Thanks in advance

[beermonsta]

Thanks Trunky et al. for all your advice and help I've made a seperate post about my cider making day here...
viewtopic.php?f=13&t=36029
It sort of summarises what I've learnt in pictures
Ben

[Trunky]

[jeremy]

I'm quite new to proper cider making. This year I'm only doing it on a domestic blender scale with whatever apples and pears I can get cheap or for free, so I'm jealously eyeing the larger equipment that some of you have.

My question is about browning of the juice during the pulping and pressing stages. Despite using quite high sulphite levels (2 campden tablets for about 2.5 litres of juice) and half a lemon, it has still gone somewhat brown. I used about 15% high tannin crabs, which can't be helping the problem.

Will this affect the final flavour? The juice tastes reasonable, but I like to think it could have tasted better. Do those of you doing this on a larger scale do anything to prevent this?

When I made a part apple, part bought juice TC I didn't have this problem, but I was using less tannic apples, and since I was diluting the pressed apple juice I wasn't worrying about whether I used too much sulphite.

[Trunky]