Aussiedistiller, Home Distilling, Moonshine, Home Brew

So I have been expirementing with making cider from Apple juice (and brandy)

My latest batch is amazing espically since it's only about 70c a bottle to make (330ml)

I started off with just normal coles brand apple juice which I have since decided is only good for making brandy or a clear cider

The latest recipe which I am now sharing is what I would class as good proper english style cider, its cloudy and full of sediment

Tastes good at room temp or cold and is still, I haven't carbonated any yet

Recipe is as follows

15L of coles brand apple juice (5 3L bottles) about $1 per Litre
12L of Nudie cloudy apple juice (6 2L bottles) about $3 per Litre
Packet of S04 yeast

In a 30L fermentor

Heat 6L of coles brand apple juice to boil and add to the fermenter, cool down with one more bottle of coles

Add the Nudie making sure when you pour the juice in you slosh it around and get as much air into it as possible

Hint take the Nudie juice out of the fridge a few hours before you make it, the coles should be at room temp

The temp should be around 26-34C and a SG of 1050

Add the S04 on top and seal up your fermentor, It will take upto 12hrs to starting bubbling (last batch was within an hour)

Keep at 26-28C (I have a heater belt around mine)

Within 10 days it should have a gravity reading of 1004 and after 11 days 1002 (6.1% ish)

You can either let it go down to 990 or rack it off as is and let it finish in 2nd ferment to reduce sediment

Don't worry if you get a white plug growing on the top as its just yeast

I am still of two minds if I am going to keep it still or carb it, you can not taste the alcohol over the apple taste

This stuff is amazing

More info as I let it age :)

that ferment temp seems a little high. I would aim for around 20C.

If you have kegs you can do the following:

Ferment out 16L of juice with us05 or nottingham, even that brigalow yeast you see at coles does the job if you put 3 of them in.

Let it ferment out for two weeks and let it settle. Drain fermenter into the keg. Top up the keg with 3L of apple juice and put in the fridge at serving temp to start carbing. You HAVE to put it in the fridge or it will start to ferment the new juice you put it. Which also means you can't do this when bottling.

This makes the cider go from 6% to 5% and sweetens it up a little. Its not sickly sweet like most commercial ciders though.

I use the woolworths $1.10 per litre juice (probably exactly the same as the coles juice)

any nutrients needed?

I have in the past just made a cider from aldi's apple juice plus some nutrients. Kegged it at around 1010 so that had some sweetness. Was pretty good.

poompy wrote:any nutrients needed?

I have in the past just made a cider from aldi's apple juice plus some nutrients. Kegged it at around 1010 so that had some sweetness. Was pretty good.

Apple juice has plenty of nutrients already in it so you don't need to add extra but doesn't hurt :p

My first Gen was all coles apple juice which finished at 1010, but compared to this receipe its crap

Like comparing sminoff to grey goose :p

Cheers.

Howcome you heat up the coles juice (6L) to boiling?

poompy wrote:Cheers.

Howcome you heat up the coles juice (6L) to boiling?

Because when you cool it down the total liquid will be at pitching temp for the yeast :)

No worries. I have always fermented my cider at 18-19 degrees

Clickeral, I have heard you can buy through Nudie direct and get it a bit cheaper...think it's still $2 a litre though as opposed to Coles brand at $1 a litre, but the quality of the proper stuff is far superior as you know.

Speaking of that, going to pour myself a glass of nudie apple juice now ;-)

Anyone ever tried stilling there apple cider?

ONe day apples were on sale so i got my patient wife to spend all day throwing them through the juicer to make some cider. I think we spent 6 hours juicing to yield about 23L of juice. Anyway, it was going great until a rat chewed a hole in the gladwrap and some vinegar flies go in there. The actual cider tastes fine but i know as soon as its bottled the aceto infection will take over causing bottle bombs. Have often though of stilling it... There's only 20L there but i could easily make up another batch of cider to get a total volume of 60L. Would probably taste nice i imainge.

ekul wrote:Anyone ever tried stilling there apple cider?

ONe day apples were on sale so i got my patient wife to spend all day throwing them through the juicer to make some cider. I think we spent 6 hours juicing to yield about 23L of juice. Anyway, it was going great until a rat chewed a hole in the gladwrap and some vinegar flies go in there. The actual cider tastes fine but i know as soon as its bottled the aceto infection will take over causing bottle bombs. Have often though of stilling it... There's only 20L there but i could easily make up another batch of cider to get a total volume of 60L. Would probably taste nice i imainge.

Thats what I am doing with another batch I made up

Ive been calling it apple brandy, I would either strip it in a pot still and do a spirit run or do what I'm planing on doing and runing it through a bubbler with 4 plates but no reflux

Should carry the taste over :)

We had a batch of cider that was awful to drink. Quite flat. Put it through the still with some TPW feints and got a nice light apple brandy

I bought 12ltrs of apple juice from aldi and added half teaspoon of nutrient and a cider yeast a cup of sugar for every 2 ltrs disolved and watertrapped it ,its still bubbling but last batch w :happy-partydance: as the bomb

Ok ive just bottled my apple cider but gee its strong ive added some extra apple juice to a couple bottles and some sugar to prime the bottles ,il give it a couple weeks somewhere cool and dark see how it pans out

waynescider wrote:Ok ive just bottled my apple cider but gee its strong ive added some extra apple juice to a couple bottles and some sugar to prime the bottles ,il give it a couple weeks somewhere cool and dark see how it pans out

Yeah you wouldn't need the extra sugar :p the Coles/aldi brand with s04 will ferment out dry to about 8% haha

Also adding extra juice will just give it more sugar to convert so I wouldn't have added extra sugar to prime

Be careful or you'll have bottle bombs

The receipe I put up was pretty spot on :)

Hey clickeral what sort of fores cut do you do on this when making brandy? cheers :-B Really want to make some apple brandy. Also do you age it on oak or drink it straight off still?

:text-+1: on the couldy juice. Makes a superior cider. If you like your cider a touch sweeter but hate the artificial sweetener aftertaste, try adding some lactose (as an unfermentable sugar) to the fermenter.
Cheers

Bluc, it's only brandy after being aged on oak, yeah? Otherwise it's (grappa, slivovitz, insert regional name of white fruit spirit here) ?
Do half n half if you wanna try both ways. Or maybe thirds to try a traditional calvados too. Gotta google that one though :handgestures-thumbupleft:

Ok cool cheers

I tried making cider, but found it all to be very thin and boring. I make Graff now. modified from Brandon O's recipe, if you should wanna go searching for it.

12L of aldi apple juice
4 litres sour cherry juice (or 4 litres apple and blackcurrant juice if you prefer)

I then do a mini mash with 500g of crystal 120 and 30g wheat for a final volume of around 4 litres. Once thats mashed out, I add 1.5kg liquid amber malt, and bring to the boil. boil for 15 minutes, add 15-30g of crystal hops (cascade works too, but dont use too much. the hops just help cover the tartness of the cheap juice), boil for another 15 minutes, then throw the whole lot in the fermenter with the juice. ferment with saffale 05. usually starts around 1070, and should finish between 1002 and 1008. this will do well with a month or so in the bottle, but its normally pretty drinkable straight away.

i've also experimented with a similar recipe using DME instead of amber, and fermenting with a belgian saison yeast. I have to say, it was pretty bloody nice.

for you guys who go the next step and still your cider...do u get any significant apple taste or is it just faint. I have tried this with several fruits and cant get a real fruit taste, other than infusing some fruit after bottling.