Cider making

[corydoras]

Thanks for the input everyone.

I think the kitchen juicer is probably favourite for the sort of quantities we are likely to be making.

Did I read somewhere that to make cider you use windfalls and rely on wild yeasts for fermentation or do you add a brewers yeast?

If you want a consistent taste and quality use a commercial yeast.

[Steve Walker]

Did I read somewhere that to make cider you use windfalls and rely on wild yeasts for fermentation or do you add a brewers yeast?

 

I cheated:

 

 

 

Actually, I used that for the plain cider and the weakest cyser - I think I used a champagne yeast for the intermediate one and a high alcohol yeast for the strongest one.

[corydoras]

Once upon a time nearly every little village in the Pay d'Auge had one of these.

Edited August 25, 2011 by corydoras

[Steve Walker]

I think the French cider making process is different to the English one - in some regions at least. I've tried French ciders with a really distinctive toffee/caramel flavour to them, and I have a vague recollection of reading about the fermentation process using some kind of top-fermenting yeast - Jim?

[Phone]

corydoras,

 

Very cool pic.

You guys are talking about fermented apple juice - - - right?

 

Apple juice (unpasturized) is $1.00 a liter from the orchard. Let it set for a few days and shoot craps with your pals (or go fishing). One liter will ferment, one will turn to vinegar. Does that count as "making cider"?

 

Some of the close nit groups of anglers I have fished with in the past are also into "homemade" beer. Whilst waiting for a run they talk for hours about the 1,100 varieties of yeast available commercially. I hate beer and enjoy hard cider once every three years.

 

Phone

BTW, apples are not the only fruit used. Do you make "other stuff"?

[corydoras]

I think the French cider making process is different to the English one - in some regions at least. I've tried French ciders with a really distinctive toffee/caramel flavour to them, and I have a vague recollection of reading about the fermentation process using some kind of top-fermenting yeast - Jim?

They can't be that much different. It was the Normans that brought cider making to the English after all.

[corydoras]

corydoras,

 

Very cool pic.

You guys are talking about fermented apple juice - - - right?

 

Apple juice (unpasturized) is $1.00 a liter from the orchard. Let it set for a few days and shoot craps with your pals (or go fishing). One liter will ferment, one will turn to vinegar. Does that count as "making cider"?

 

Some of the close nit groups of anglers I have fished with in the past are also into "homemade" beer. Whilst waiting for a run they talk for hours about the 1,100 varieties of yeast available commercially. I hate beer and enjoy hard cider once every three years.

 

Phone

BTW, apples are not the only fruit used. Do you make "other stuff"?

You have to control the fermenting. Some yeasts turn sugar into ethanol, some other microbes convert ethanol into ethanoic acid (vinegar).

[Phone]

corydoras,

 

Yep, don't want to hijack the thread but it is a common practice with corn (maize). When we add yeast secured from a previous "tasty" batch they pretty much "match" for blending in a few years (or the same day for moonshine).

 

What do you call "cider" made from other fruits? My grandmother kept a live compote pot to help cure the consumption. She had a lot of consumption.

 

Phone

[Ken L]

corydoras,

 

Very cool pic.

You guys are talking about fermented apple juice - - - right?

 

Apple juice (unpasteurized) is $1.00 a liter from the orchard. Let it set for a few days and shoot craps with your pals (or go fishing). One liter will ferment, one will turn to vinegar. Does that count as "making cider"?

 

Some of the close nit groups of anglers I have fished with in the past are also into "homemade" beer. Whilst waiting for a run they talk for hours about the 1,100 varieties of yeast available commercially. I hate beer and enjoy hard cider once every three years.

 

Cheap pasteurized apple juice + a little extra sugar + grape tannin + malic or citric acid + Champagne yeast = turbo cider.

Ferment it out, bottle it after priming with a little sugar and stick it in the shed for a couple of months and you have a very drinkable cider for about 30p a pint.

[Steve Walker]

They can't be that much different. It was the Normans that brought cider making to the English after all.

 

A bit of googling reveals that the French still use a method which the Normans brought to England but which eventually fell out of fashion here. So we mash the apples and put them straight in the press. The traditional method mashes the apples and leaves them in a barrel for some hours before pressing, giving them time to oxidise and for pectin to be released from the fruit. They do this when the weather is cold, so that fermentation is retarded. Over about a week, the pectin coagulates to form a brown floating gelled scum and throws a sediment - between them, they remove a large proportion of the nitrogen from the juice. The clear juice is racked off and fermented at low temperature under airlock and then bottle conditioned. Because of the low temperature and the lack of nitrogen, fermentation is slow and incomplete and the cider finishes sweet and sparkling. This traditional process is a bit hit and miss, but has been industrialised in France to use refrigeration and a bit of chemistry to work reliably.