Making Cider?

[Chappie519]

Hi, ive got a load of old apples and was planning making them into some cider. Ive heard that if you squeeze all the juice off the apples and leave the skins in the juice in a warm place it will ferment natuarly, is this true??

Cheers

[Hoppkins]

Im no expert but mother nature provides yeasts in some forms. This is how Lambic beer is made, the river which they source the water from contains wild yeasts.

Back in the medeval times the connection between yeast and beer/cider/wine hadn't been made and i belive they relied on mother nature to do her work.

I can't comment on how successfull you would be.

[prodigal2]

If your apples came from a supermarket, you will strugle as they will more than likely of been iradiated, and therefor will struggle to ferment.

I currently have a apple I bought in the UK in one of my compost hot heaps (temp about 65-70deg C) for the past week and as yet the flesh has only started to slightly go tan. whilst woody material has started to break down.

At this time of the year I would make TC and wait till autumn to make real cider when the apples are at their best.

[Chappie519]

Cheers lads! Yeah there from the super market! But i do normally get a muckel amount of apples falling off the trees in august so ill mayb wait until then!
Could a packet of brewing yeast be added to these to help them ferment?

Cheers

[prodigal2]

You can but give it a try

[Jim]

Have a look at this. It might give you a few ideas.

[Maltloaf]

Hello Chappie,

I normally make some kind of cider once the apples start jumping off the trees. I don't assume the yeasts on the skins will make a good brew so I add a crushed campden tablet to the juice (as it emerges from the press) to stop the natural yeasts. 24hours later I'll add a known yeast from a packet, something like a Gervin white wine or champagne yeast.

I reckon this method would work fine with the supermarket ones too, but I can't say I've ever bought apples for cider.

Cheers,
ML.

[The Cardinal]

I had a horrible thought about proper cider....

To make it, they obviously gather loads of fallen apples, chop 'em up and them press them, collecting the resultant juice which is then fermented. With me so far?

My problem is this......there must be a good proportion of those apples that have got wasps and caterpillars and numerous other nasty little bugs living inside them. So.....surely when the apples and chopped and mushed and squeezed, so are the little beasties? That means that a good percentage of cider is actually made from chopped, squeezed and fermented BUG JUICE

[Russ]

Yeah your spot on adds body......

Sure I've read somewhere that, as a percentage, approx. 1 slice from a loaf of bread is bugs......

Theres no such thing as a vegetarian!

Even worse? -where I used to go to college there was a cider orchard and some of the staff used to walk their dogs in there.....

all adds to the flavour!

[Gurgeh]

commercially grown apples are probably drenched in pesticide - when was the last time you bought an apple which was imperfect (I hear joni mitchell in the distance)

My cider however is definitely not vegetarian... Not a problem!

btw - have i got dud campden tablets? I crushed apples last year to make 4 gallons of juice - I bought a JCB shredder for the purpose of scratting (works extremely well). Anyway, I crushed and stirred in 4 campden tablets and planned to leave it a couple of days to disperse the chemicals before pitching.
Thing was going like a nutter the next morning though!

I think this year, I'm going to pitch a starter of whatever beer yeast i've got at the time big enough pitch and my added yeast should pretty much sideline whatever yeast is in there already...

[Bodger]

I hope this helps

We made cider for the first time ever this year and so I ticked off another one of my lifetime ambitions.
We beg stole and borrowed apples from wherever we could and made about twenty gallons.
Here is a pictorial guide of what went on over two weekends. REALLY GOOD FUN











We even got Granny Bodger on the left to sort the apples.
The small cylindrical press held 12 litres of what the professionals call cheese which is really squished apples to us novices and cost £70.
This was more than adequate but the bigger one was made by my mate from plans that we got from Downsizer.








Even this small press churned out plenty of juice for our size of operation




We put the chopped apples through a borrowed garden shredder.




The press that Bodgers Mate made worked well but there will be modifications for next season.




Not the finished article but a few months on its now perfectly clear.

The good news ! If we can do it anybody can ! The bad news is that after making 20 gallons of the stuff, I have a sneaky feeling that this stuff is responsible for giving me gout !



We even toyed with the idea of having our own label. Dillusions of grandeur or what ?

[prodigal2]

Bodger, that looked great

I take it that the whole expedition was worth it, oh great to see so many people involved and great pics to show the process.

[oblivious]

Very nice, do you secondary or bottle after along primary?

[charlie]

Cheers lads! Yeah there from the super market! But i do normally get a muckel amount of apples falling off the trees in august so ill mayb wait until then!
Could a packet of brewing yeast be added to these to help them ferment?

Cheers

I only got given a mickle of apples last year so I only got 2 1/2 gallons, but it is a lot more drinkable than last years.

[pricey]

I forgot about that Bodger Remember to bring me some down next month