Simple Cheap and Tasty, Raspberryade

[gonga]

[quote="och29"][quote="gonga"]Hello.
After 2 weeks i checked the gravity and hit 1.020. I was a little disappointed but after reading on here people waiting 3/4 weeks then i left it another week.
After 3 weeks it was still at 1.020.

Checked the pH with cheap strips and it was below 3.Thinking this could of caused the yeast to shut down i added a tsp of bi-carb of soda to up the ph to above 3 and low and behold it took off again and finished 4 days later around 1.000.
The resulting brew is tainted with an awful after taste.

I was sanitizing with bleach,could this linger and cause a pH drop like this?

[/quote]

Hi Gonga, thanks for joining and posting. I've brewed a fair bit of beer but this is my first Turbo Cider but I think I can help. Firstly oxygenation might be a problem: Before the yeast start converting the sugar to alcohol they need to multiply. During this initial growth phase they need oxygen so before you add the yeast you need to really shake up the mixture. By this I mean [u]at least[/u] 1 minute of constant shaking. (Shaking is very effective [url=http://www.brewangels.com/Beerformation ... ethods.pdf]see here[/url])
Secondly temperature might be an issue, if you're directly measuring the liquid then you can probably ignore. Yeast produce lots of heat when they're fermenting so keeping it in an insulated box might result it too high a temperature.
Finally the bleach might be an issue. I use StarSan which is a no rinse sanitiser and have never used bleach so take this with a big pinch of salt: First you need to clean the fermenting vessel with soap to remove 'crap' where bacteria/yeast can hide. Then rinse with hot water, soap can stop bleach from sanitising properly. Then use bleach and rinse with plenty of 'boiled then cooled' water.

I doubt it's one single thing but try these and hopefully your brew will drop to final gravity in a few days![/quote]

Hi och.
I do shake, but more than likely 20 seconds if that, And usually do this after i add the yeast,will adding before be a problem?
I've got one those thermometers that you can add wireless sensors to, I aim for 22c.
Obviously thats the air temp within the box so would the brew be way to high at that?
I gave up on bleach too a couple of brews(tc's) ago and use star san. Haven't had a bash at another of these using star san yet though.
I use either a little washing up liquid or oxy cleaner for cleaning before sanitizing.

So, I'll try to shake more before i add the yeast!

Thanks for the help so far.

[och29]

Shaking after you add the yeast shouldn't be a problem, although it might mean a lot of your yeast end up covering your fermenting vessel rather than in your brew. I'd say the temperature is probably ok but 22C is a little on the high side any way. Fermenting 'hot' will mean you get a lot of esters formed (most fruit flavours are esters) but it can stress the yeast. If you can I'd aim a little lower unless you can be absolutely sure of the temperature. I fermented mine at 22C but I needed it to ferment quickly and although I can control that to within 0.5C I always assume the brew will be at least 2C hotter. For most beer I aim around 19C ambient air temperature.
StarSan is brilliant so I doubt that's the problem. Get the temps and oxygenation sorted and you should end up with something that could get down past 1.005.

[och29]

Chilled and gelatine added, hopefully it will look a little clearer in the morning!

Edit:
10 hours at 1C with gelatine


With the eye of faith I think there's a difference. I found the image below which shows how long it takes for beer to clear. However since I'm trying to stop fermentation early then I think it's going to take a bit longer. However time is still against me so I'm going to transfer to a corny keg and force carb. I should be able to leave a lot of the yeast behind in the FV but still have gelatine left in solution to help drop the rest in the keg. Must remember to discard the first pint before it goes into the Ecofass!



Edit2:
Despite rebuilding both valves I have a slightly leaky corny keg. However it's now full of TC and is in the fridge force carbonating at 2C and 13(ish)psi.
Yeast cake looked pretty good too!

[gonga]

[quote="och29"]Shaking after you add the yeast shouldn't be a problem, although it might mean a lot of your yeast end up covering your fermenting vessel rather than in your brew. I'd say the temperature is probably ok but 22C is a little on the high side any way. Fermenting 'hot' will mean you get a lot of esters formed (most fruit flavours are esters) but it can stress the yeast. If you can I'd aim a little lower unless you can be absolutely sure of the temperature. I fermented mine at 22C but I needed it to ferment quickly and although I can control that to within 0.5C I always assume the brew will be at least 2C hotter. For most beer I aim around 19C ambient air temperature.
StarSan is brilliant so I doubt that's the problem. Get the temps and oxygenation sorted and you should end up with something that could get down past 1.005.[/quote]

Picked up one more bottle of melina yesterday,I'll give it one more bash.
Would it be considered safe to prime as normal and glass bottle at 1.014?

[och29]

The simple answer is no and definitely not with priming sugar. You might be ok, especially if your gravity readings have been stable for over a week but there's a good chance the extra sugar might kickstart the fermentation again. As an experiment I've used the last little bit of mine that didn't go into the keg to fill three bottles. I was at 1.015 before crash cooling and have added gelatine both of which should drop some of the yeast out of suspension. However I'm still going to keep them in a bucket with another over the top as it has the potential to drop 10 points which would be up to 3 times ale carbonation.

[och29]

@Gonga
Having thought about it for a while, your problems might be due to infection. 'Sour Beers' end up with a pH around 3 and they are intentionally inoculated with souring bacteria.

Be sure to give everything that might touch your cider a thorough clean and sanitisation. Remember that StarSan isn't always effective if you have hard water. If when you dilute it down your solution is cloudy it might be worth using cheap bottled water e.g. Tesco Ashbeck or even distilled water (used in car batteries or irons).

[gonga]

Evening och.
So what should my pH be for this recipe?
One thing I had thought about was that I always rinsed the bleach( thick) with cold water.
Does rinsing in cold get rid of all traces of it?

I do mix my starsan in ashbeck water even though we have quite soft water here.

[jmc]

Evening och.
So what should my pH be for this recipe?
One thing I had thought about was that I always rinsed the bleach( thick) with cold water.
Does rinsing in cold get rid of all traces of it?

I do mix my starsan in ashbeck water even though we have quite soft water here.

When I use bleach I use Tesco value thin bleach as its easier to rinse off.
I also follow with a quick swirl of campden tablet solution to remove any last trace of chlorine.

[Belcher]

Mine took 2 weeks to get down from 1.058 to 1.030. Before I pitched the yeast I put in yeast nutrient as well as some lemon juice and some juice from boiled raisins. Don't know what was going on so I siphoned the batch onto about a gallon of Skeeter Pee which had finished. Hopefully it will ferment down from here. I'll have another go in the future.

As a side note, I added a bottle of the Lowicz to half a Wherry kit and its quite nice. I let the Wherry ferment down to about 1.014 and racked it onto the syrup bumping it back up to 1.025. I let it ferment back down to 1.012 and bottled it. It tastes quite nice. No sweetness and a nice residual raspberry aftertaste.

[gonga]

Put another gallon on last night along with a turbo cider.
I really made sure i shock the lads up!
I'll leave the raspberry ade in the kitchen so i can keep my eye on it.

[och29]

Managed to get mine kegged and ready for a long weekend away!

[WalesAles]

Cider Fest tonight,,,,,,,,
Guava TC Nice
Passion Fruit TC Nice
Raspberryade with Ginger, Nutmeg and Cinammon, Bloody Lovely Mun!
Tropical Juice TC Nice!
Quiet Night In!
WA

[tazzymutt]

Calibration brew of Raspberry and Ginger TC

After trying WalesAles Raspberry and Ginger TC I felt I really ought to try one of my own. WA had expressed doubts about the level of gingeriness (is that a word?) so, although I thought it was OK, I thought I'd adapt the brew a bit and see how much raspberry and ginger I like best. The brew went on last night and is now sitting in the brew fridge (under an FV of very hoppy Coopers English Bitter).

WalesAles Recipe
3 bottles Polish Raspberry Syrup
3 mugs Tea (4 bags each)
50g Grated Real Ginger (May want to increase to 100g)
2 large Bramleys Grated
3 tsp Yeast
3 tsp Yeast nutrient
Pitch at @ 22deg
Made to 18Lts with Tesco basic Apple juice

My calibration Batch (18 litres in 4 FVs)
Ingredients:
4 bottles Polish Raspberry Syrup
3 mugs Tea (4 bags each)
2 large Bramleys Grated
1 pk Yeast (Gervin ale yeast used, because that's all I had)
4 tbsp. lemon juice
16 litres Tesco value apple juice
125g root ginger (grated)

General mix:
Fermentables:
3 bottles Polish Raspberry Syrup (440ml)
3 mugs strong black tea (4 bags each)
2 large Bramley apples, grated

Starter:
3 tsp Yeast
4 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp sugar

Make up yeast starter with 200ml warm water (25C), yeast, sugar and lemon juice. Cover and set aside to get going.

Make up 3 mugs of very strong black tea, leave to brew.

Grate bramley apples and add to FV. Add raspberry syrup (3 bottles – keep one back). Add apple juice to about 12 litres and mix well. Remove tea bags from brews and add tea to FV. Mix again and add yeast starter at approx. 22C.

Transfer brew equally into four clean, numbered, demijohns. Make adjustments to syrup and add ginger as detailed in table below:

DJ Adjustments:



Top up DJ’s to 4 litres and give them a very vigorous shake, then fit air locks and transfer to brew fridge set to 20C.

Once most vigorous ferment has died down, I will top up with a little more apple juice, around 500ml per DJ should be sufficient.

Allow fermentation to finish, then bottle with a little priming sugar. Keep careful control of bottles to avoid mixing up batches! (I'll probably use coloured spots on the lids for easy identification when stored in crates).

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with this brew and comparing the different versions. Lessons learned so far include realising (too late) that syphoning grated bramleys is not going to work. Next time I try something like this the apple, like the ginger, will be added directly to the demijohns.

Happy brewing,


Ian.

[WalesAles]

Tazzy
Good Looking Brews there! Glad to see you diversifying!
What were the SGs? I`ve never done one with 4 bottles of Syrup. That should be tasty and strong.
My Brew with 3 bottles of Syrup came out at 7.6%. Brewed with 2 bottles of Syrup came out at 7.1%.
Looking in my BrewBook, I found a Raspberry and Cinammon TC made with 3 bottles Syrup made to 20Lts came out at 8.2%. Very Tasty!
Don`t worry about siphoning because of the grated apples. I always find that 3 days before bottling, just give the DJ a little shake at the top, the apples will sink
to the bottom. If needed, give a little shake over the next 2 days. You can follow your Siphon tube down the DJ and slightly tilt DJ when near the bottom to ensure
that you get 99% of your brew while leaving all the muck behind!
45Gr white sugar for Batch Priming 5Lts!
Good luck withe TCs.
WA

[TC2642]

doing myself a cut down version of this just using apple juice and some strawberry syrup (found in a Polish shop) because I forgot to add teabags. Still should be ready for bottling in a couple of weeks, looking forward to trying the results but I do have some liquid sweetner on hand if it's a bit too dry.