wine

[Frisbee]

What's the view on added yeast?

I don't sterilize, but do add yeast - a compromise designed to avoid the broken heart that would result from losing 40 pints of hard work to the wrong yeast.

What about conditioning and sweet vs dry?

I've always made dry, fizzy - but that's probably because I came to cider via beer kits.

My friend who is a commercial cider maker....but still small scale, doesn't add yeast, there being enough on the skins of the apples and in the air around. There isn't a wrong yeast as far as that is concerned, but the alcohol turning to acetic acid would make you cry....been there, done that. If you feel that adding yeast help you then carry on, but why don't you try say a demi-john full without any and see how it turns out?

You wouldn't want to condition a rough cider for long, it's not a product destined to keep

To make dry you would just ferment out till all the sugars have gone, you can't then sweeten with sugar as it will just start to ferment again including if you tried to prevent it with by sterilizing, so if you want to make a sweeter cider you need to add artificial sweeteners, or another trick if you had them available would be to add some Perry Pears to the mix.....Perry Pears contain unfermentable sugars which is why Perry is lower alcohol than cider and always sweeter.

Frisbee

 

[barratt_sab]

My friend who is a commercial cider maker....but still small scale, doesn't add yeast, there being enough on the skins of the apples and in the air around. There isn't a wrong yeast as far as that is concerned, but the alcohol turning to acetic acid would make you cry....been there, done that. If you feel that adding yeast help you then carry on, but why don't you try say a demi-john full without any and see how it turns out?

You wouldn't want to condition a rough cider for long, it's not a product destined to keep

To make dry you would just ferment out till all the sugars have gone, you can't then sweeten with sugar as it will just start to ferment again including if you tried to prevent it with by sterilizing, so if you want to make a sweeter cider you need to add artificial sweeteners, or another trick if you had them available would be to add some Perry Pears to the mix.....Perry Pears contain unfermentable sugars which is why Perry is lower alcohol than cider and always sweeter.

Frisbee

I tried one DJ without yeast last year and it didn't seem to start up very well. I'll try another one this year.

I also had a DJ that I opened to allow a friend to try some... and there was too much air in when I closed it up. He's still a friend, but there's still a DJ of cider vinegar hanging around the place too.

We had one batch last year that we called "Andrew Lloyd-Webber" because it was so rough that when you drank it you looked like him!

Last year we didn't start early enough - the apples were rotting on the ground before we got them in bottles and we ran out before the start of the school summer holidays (disaster).

We've started earlier this year (10 gallons started today, another 10 tomorrow if I whip the children to pick faster).

I'm happy with dry, but the perry info is interesting. We lost a huge branch off the pear tree last year and I tried to make perry from it - and it was truly awful. I've drunk everything we've produced up to and including the "toilet duck" elderflower champagne, but I couldn't take the stuff from the pears.

Thank the Lord I'm not a picky drinker.

 

[Frisbee]

We've started earlier this year (10 gallons started today, another 10 tomorrow if I whip the children to pick faster).

Are you actually picking them? The easiest way is to get someone to climb the tree and shake it............keeping well clear of course, and it's helpful to collect any fallers before you start. Children love climbing trees to shake them.

I'm happy with dry, but the perry info is interesting. We lost a huge branch off the pear tree last year and I tried to make perry from it - and it was truly awful. I've drunk everything we've produced up to and including the "toilet duck" elderflower champagne, but I couldn't take the stuff from the pears.

What kind of pear tree is it? I once tried to press juice from Conference Pears...to drink as juice and that was truly disgusting.

Frisbee

 

[barratt_sab]

Are you actually picking them? The easiest way is to get someone to climb the tree and shake it............keeping well clear of course, and it's helpful to collect any fallers before you start. Children love climbing trees to shake them.



What kind of pear tree is it? I once tried to press juice from Conference Pears...to drink as juice and that was truly disgusting.

Frisbee

We do a combination of picking up reasonable wind-falls, shaking & gathering and picking from the tree. Many of the trees are still quite young, so wouldn't take a climber.

I'm starting early this year, so it's hard to get many to shake off as yet. A shortage of equipment and time means that I cannot cope with all the apples coming ready together (at some time in the past, a prior owner of the house thought that he would need 120 apple trees...)

Last year I made an apple pile covered with a carpet, as suggested in a book, to give my self more time to process them. Needless to say (with hind-sight) a week later I had a huge festering pile of botrytis.

I don't know what variety the pear is. We pressed the fruit and it was filthy, so maybe it was a Conference. I thought it might improve through fermenting, but if anything it got worse!

One of the 5 gal bins we pressed yesterday sat for four hours in the sun yesterday afternoon and had started to ferment on its own by the time I got it in to the house, so I've left it to its own devices and we'll see what happens.

 

[Frisbee]

Yes - it's a bit early for apples yet. I had an email yesterday from someone to say his had started to fall so could I collect asap, but they are an Early Worcester and really the only variety to be ready yet.

I couldn't quote from all your interesting bits, but comment.....yes 120 apple trees is more than enough, and size well I see where you are coming from I think they would keep better on the tree than under carpet.....

The best pears I ever picked for juice came from a big old tree that my ladder didn't even reach the bottom branch....don't know what variety it was, but the juice was delightful. The conference juice was a mucky brown, poor yielding juice and tasted sickly sweet and of nothing else.

Hope the fermenting vat turns out well.

Frisbee

 

[barratt_sab]

Well, we have 20 gals bubbling away now (including the 5 with no yeast added) - more to go, but a good start, I think.

Happy brewing.

 

[Incatatus]

never tried making cider is it easy?

 

[jimbeekeeper]

never tried making cider is it easy?

Yep even I can do it!

Will be starting soon to collect all the wind falls, quite a few allread with all this wind, but not quite ripe.

I save them up in large tubs until enough for a sensible crushing a extraction.

I use an electric garden shredder to pulp up and then my mums old electric cloths spin dryer to extract the juice.

A freeze a lot for either apple juice or batches for fermenting 12 or even 18 months later

Mainly just fill a 5 gal bin and air lock and thats it, no extra sugar added as long as the apples are nice and ripe (you can push your thumb through them) and a good mix of eaters, cookers, and crabs.

Nothing scientific about it, just a good mix.

On bottling I use reused beer bottles and capper with new caps, + 1 tsp of sugar for a secondary fermentation for some fizz on opening the bottles.

 

[jimbeekeeper]

I keep meaning to do something with all the plus we have, any one recommend a simple recipe for something the use ( and not just googled!)

We have Victoria plums, + some other type.

Some black/purple damsons

and also a a yellow plum/damson (maribello ??)

 

[hedgerow pete]

the first one that springs to mind is the black /purple damsons with may be some added black berries and elderberries would make a great red wine

i would try a start with say fruit to a round 4 to 5 pounds in weight in total , dont forget to add a big pectin emzine and then stone the fruit and add warm water and yeast to make a gallon sugar wise i would aim for a medium dry so roughly about what an sg of 1010 to 1015 finish so from that work out how strong you want it and add the suger.

is that not googled i dont know what is

 

[hedgerow pete]

forgot to say when we go apple picking we have made up from some hazel stem picking arms, they are about ten foot long with a thick metal band around the one end and this has a small material bag sewn around it about a foot square,

the other way we collect is to have two tarpalins spread under the trees one each side of the trunk so the wind falls are easier to see and to collect

 

[barratt_sab]

We use one damson tree to make damson gin. Pick them, prick them and put them in jars to about 1/2 way up. Then add the cheapest gin you can find and leave them with the lid on for a couple of months. Put an inch of sugar in the bottom of the gin bottle and strain the damson gin back into the bottle. Shake it and leave for another month.

It's too sweet on its own, for my taste. However, two measures of damson gin, one of triple sec and the juice of half a lemon, with ice and lemonade makes a reasonably acceptable summer evening cooler.

 

[hedgerow pete]

i ran out of gin once, whilst making sloe gin so we ended up with sloe vodka and sloe brandy, tasted very nice too,

 

[biggles]

I spent the weekend making some cider 360 gallons :O)
[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nP61xU72-8w[/ame]

Pete