Cider making (1 Viewer)

[falsemonkey]

Anyone have any experience in brewing yer own cider? Just wondering what gear you need, if there is anywhere round Dublin to buy it, cheaply. And what apples work best, any other advise, etc etc.
Nice one.

 

[ernesto]

Break Neck Speed on here has some youtube video tutorials if you can dig em out. pretty decent if i recall

 

[ernesto]

hmmm, that '@' thing didnt work. get on to Tom anyway

 

[Kastrosama]

brewing cider is fairly handy, the hardest thing is to extract the juice from apples..
the handiest thing to make is a grinder or a scratter.. you can find youtube videos.. what they will do is crush and pulp your apples.
depending on how fine the pulp or crushed apples are determines your next step..

if it looks nearly like applesauce/baby food.. then you can start the fermenting process.
if its just chunks of apple.. you need to extract the juice.

best way to extract the juice is use a press, handy youtube videos to make them outa wood and a car jack. just do a quick search for diy apple juice press.

once you have your juice, its about what way you want to ferment it, if you want a dry or sweet cider, theres loads of factors to consider.
i dont use demijohns to ferment in because they are too expensive, i use 5ltr water bottles with a one way valve fitted to the lid or if i can get my hands on them, food grade buckets with lids.. check pizza takeaways for these as they are used for sauce and mayo and the likes.

in the fermenting process the biggest issue is contamination, you need to keep everything clean, use milton or you will spoil your hard work

 

[falsemonkey]

Great, cheers for the advise. I've made homebrew beer few times but not for ages. Thought I'd give cider a try. I'll check those youtube videos.

Are cooking apples ok to use? I assume eating apples are too sweet?

 

[irishbrewer]

You can actually make a fairly decent dry cider by just using Lidl cloudy apple juice and yeast. There is even a photo comic guide.

 

[Chodan]

You can actually make a fairly decent dry cider by just using Lidl cloudy apple juice and yeast. There is even a photo comic guide.

fuckin eh such a good post, makin a batch this weekend

 

[тхеодоре кацзынски]

tried watching those videos referred to above a few weeks back,they seem to have been taken down form youtube.theres a home brew shop in rathmines now,just opposite the oriental supermarket down the town end of the main street.

 

[Chodan]

wish there was a shop like that in phibsboro, i just orderd shit of the internet looks like the first batch will cost just under 30 for 2 gallons but you can do it cheaper if you wanna use plastic bottles, i said fuck it and got the glass demi johns. after the first batch it will just cost what 8 euro for the cider and 2 for the yeast to make 8 liters off booze. happy days.

 

[Break Neck Speed]

I took the videos down from youtube as I was sick of getting emails from dumbass cunts asking questions that are easily answered with google.

Problem with making cider from apples is this: The apple has to taste good to start with, which means you either have to buy them or you have access to an orchard full of delicious fruit. You more than likely dont have an orchard so yer best bet is to buy a load of quality juice. Tesco do pressed cloudy apple juice (or at least they did anyway)

Sanitize everything that will touch yer brew, bring apple juice to around 20 degrees celcius in a pot, add a kg of brewers sugar, stirr it up. Add the lotnp to your fermentation vessel, take a gravity reading then add brewers yeast. Stick your airlock on and leave it for a few weeks until fermentation has stopped. Blah blah, just realised someone had all this written already.

I did make my own apple press with a 3 tonne bottle jack, 4x2, a turkey tray and a 13" rack tom. If you want plans I can do them up. Worked amazingly well.

 

[HMD]

i made cider with the lidl cloudy apple juice a few weeks ago. added some brewing sugar and got cider that was 8,5%. here's a link to the recipe

A few years ago i made it from apples and it was a lot of work. Used an electric juicer. I'd go with the shop bought juice next time

Chodan if you stick the yeast in the fridge you can use it for a couple of months. you only need a tea spoon of it.

I've a batch of lemonade fermenting using the same recipe as the ginger beer in the link above but swap the ginger with 9 lemons and use the zest. will post results when it's done

 

[Chodan]

Cheers for that eh! That idiots guide way doesnt involve sugar Im guessing thats why it takes 2 months instead of the 5-7 days plus the time to make it fizzy?
Defo gonna try that ginger beer, fuckin hooked on that crabbies stuff but its way too expensive.