Home Brew

[PedroB]

don4l said:

I'm tempted to have a go at making cider.

Is sterilisation just as important with cider as it is with ale?

My other question is about the apple presses. They seem to cost about £200. Do people really pay this for a bit of home brewing?

Ta.

Check your local homebrew shop. Most of them have apple scratters and presses that they loan for the weekend for £20 or so.

[C0ffin D0dger]

don4l said:

I'm tempted to have a go at making cider.

Is sterilisation just as important with cider as it is with ale?

My other question is about the apple presses. They seem to cost about £200. Do people really pay this for a bit of home brewing?

Ta.

As with all things brewing keeping everything clean is a good idea but with regards to cider I guess it depends if you intend to use the wild yeast present on the apples to ferment them or add your own. If using the wild yeast option all you need is a sterile fermenting vessel, wash your apples, scrat them, press the juice, lob it in the fermenter and let nature do its thing for a few months. A lot of the farmhouse cider places round here then store it in wooden barrels and I'm lead to believe the wood itself has some natural sterilising properties. You'd hope they'd give the barrels a scrub before putting the cider in but you never know. There's always talk of a rat or two falling in the fermenter and dissolving thus adding to the "body" of the cider but I sure this is obviously bullsh*t

If making a cider with a commercial yeast the hygiene is much more paramount. The process to extract the juice from the apples in the same and not a clean process but after that sodium metabisulphite is added to the juice to kill off any wild yeasts and other nasties present. After this keeping everything sterile is very important. Once that has had a day or two to do its thing brewing yeast is added to the fermenter and left to do it's stuff. Brewing yeast is must faster acting and only takes a week or two to full ferment the juice into cider ready for barrelling or bottling, again at this stage hygiene is key as you don't want you finished product spoiling while it matures.

[Evoluzione]

don4l said:

I'm tempted to have a go at making cider.

Is sterilisation just as important with cider as it is with ale?

My other question is about the apple presses. They seem to cost about £200. Do people really pay this for a bit of home brewing?

Ta.

I think it depends on how much you want to do, how long you are prepared to spend doing it and if you get enjoyment from doing it too. My own personal viewpoint/criteria is I don't want to spend two days using a scratter & press and the end product has to be better and cheaper than off-the-shelf ciders. Some people make their own scratters or use a garden shredder, some make their own presses too (often using a car jack). http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-make-cider/

Make notes as you go so you can vary the recipe next time, make subtle changes to each DJ if you like so you get many different recipes and see which is best.
I just researched the hell out of it online and got busy. I was unsure the final product was any good so went shopping and bought the best ciders I could find and did a taste test, I then started giving it away. When mine tasted much better than any other and people started coming back and asking for more I knew I'd done something right.

My main problem was getting the amount of fizz right, I made some which erupted as you opened the cap and threw 80% of itself straight out of the bottle

If you don't want to mess around with apples or want to make cider out of season then try making Turbocider, it's as good as any average/cheap supermarket cider, but not as tasty as the real thing. You can also add pears or flavoured syrups towards the end, Tesco do a Polish raspberry & lime one which is ok.

I made some which was a bit harsh and 9%, so in Winter I heat it in a pan and add honey, cinnamon sticks and vanilla to make some kind of cider/mead/Glühwein which goes down well at parties.

The possibilities are endless....

[don4l]

Thank you for the answers. I have a much clearer picture of the way forward.

I will see if I can rent the press for my first batch. I have no idea if my apples are suitable, so if they are not going to produce a decent cider, then it isn't really worth buying one.

[C0ffin D0dger]

don4l said:

Thank you for the answers. I have a much clearer picture of the way forward.

I will see if I can rent the press for my first batch. I have no idea if my apples are suitable, so if they are not going to produce a decent cider, then it isn't really worth buying one.

What apples have you got? Most of them with the exception of cooking apples will make something palatable.

Cooking apples are too sharp on their own but if mixed with some desert apples can also make a good brew.

Most cider is actually made from cider apples though, you won't generally see these varieties of apples in the shops.

[don4l]

C0ffin D0dger said:

What apples have you got? Most of them with the exception of cooking apples will make something palatable.

Cooking apples are too sharp on their own but if mixed with some desert apples can also make a good brew.

Most cider is actually made from cider apples though, you won't generally see these varieties of apples in the shops.

They are cookers (I'm not sure what variety). I might buy some eating apples to mix in. I was thinking of using Sucralose to sweeten it up a bit.

I get a huge crop every year and it just gets wasted. It would be great if I could use them.

[Evoluzione]

don4l said:

They are cookers (I'm not sure what variety). I might buy some eating apples to mix in. I was thinking of using Sucralose to sweeten it up a bit.

I get a huge crop every year and it just gets wasted. It would be great if I could use them.

The problem is the acidity, maybe try a base with nothing added apart from sugar, another one with honey, one with cheap supermarket apple juice and one with pineapple juice and see how they turn out. It also changes the flavour with when you add any extras - i've found adding honey after it's finished initial fermentation to give it a lovely flavour, deep colour and curbs acidity which is what you will have.
Buying less acidic sweet apples is ok, but it will add cost to something that's supposed to be cheap.
The pro brewers actually blend when it's brewed not before it's so difficult to forecast.

[otolith]

Honey works well with our mix of cooking and desert apples. Caramelised honey is even better.

[don4l]

Evoluzione said:

The problem is the acidity, maybe try a base with nothing added apart from sugar, another one with honey, one with cheap supermarket apple juice and one with pineapple juice and see how they turn out. It also changes the flavour with when you add any extras - i've found adding honey after it's finished initial fermentation to give it a lovely flavour, deep colour and curbs acidity which is what you will have.
Buying less acidic sweet apples is ok, but it will add cost to something that's supposed to be cheap.
The pro brewers actually blend when it's brewed not before it's so difficult to forecast.

I've got loads of sweet grapes. Do you think that I could use those?

I'll also give the honey a go.

[Evoluzione]

don4l said:

Evoluzione said:

The problem is the acidity, maybe try a base with nothing added apart from sugar, another one with honey, one with cheap supermarket apple juice and one with pineapple juice and see how they turn out. It also changes the flavour with when you add any extras - i've found adding honey after it's finished initial fermentation to give it a lovely flavour, deep colour and curbs acidity which is what you will have.
Buying less acidic sweet apples is ok, but it will add cost to something that's supposed to be cheap.
The pro brewers actually blend when it's brewed not before it's so difficult to forecast.

I've got loads of sweet grapes. Do you think that I could use those?

I'll also give the honey a go.

Might work, might not! I would definitely give them a go if you have plenty. I guess it depends on their acidity, I bought a cheap electric PH tester on Ebay so I can record what mine is for future reference.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Digital-Pocket-PH-Meter-...

[mattyn1]

Just want to check if I have an issue with some lager I should be about to bottle. The kit is "Make your own Lager" from The Range.

Have just done the taste test prior to bottling, and it does not taste sweet. However it is quite messy as in this photo (hopefully it comes out in the pic). I added the contents of the hop sachet three days ago, without stirring, and it seems like they have not dissolved properly.

My intention is to siphon off into another fermenter, add some beer and wine finings, and get it ready to bottle when it clears.

Thoughts?

[Hoonigan]

Excellent, just found my sort of thread... Sat here drinking my own recipie Amarillo, Nelson Sauvin, Vienna IPA, poured from my recently created kegorator

[SwanJack]

Not sure what was in your hop sachet, but if it was hops they're not going to dissolve. Before you transfer it to add finings, if you can, try dropping the temerature of the beer, that way all the suspended matter will drop out.
I'm brewing a Dunkelweizen today, which will be ready for for Christmas, along with 40 pints of a milk stout with chocolate, 20 pints of a 10.5% dark Belgian ans what ever is left from a Belgian blond and a Belgian Dubbel that im going through far too quickly

[mattyn1]

Have done some digging on this... I am purchasing some fine straining bags for the next time, but this batch will be strained through some of the Mrs tights! Sanitised of course, and not the gusset!

I really have the bug! I have on the go this lager, some Woodford Wherry ale which I will barrel, some Pinot Noir (30 bottles of the stuff), and a Christmas treat, 40 pints of Ginger beer.

So what next? I fancy some Port .... Can anyone recommend a good port kit?

[C0ffin D0dger]

Regarding the hop particles, I made a kit recently that had a sachet of hop pellets to add towards the end of fermentation (dry hopping). As seen they obviously don't dissolve so you end up with bits of hop floating around in your brew however this kit came with a little fine mesh bag that you placed over the end of the syphon to filter out the bits. Did a good job of it as I don't remember there being much if any hop type crud in the bottom of the pressure barrel after I'd finished drinking it just the usual bit of yeasty sediment.

It was one of these kits: http://ritchieproducts.uk/festival-premium-ale-kit...

Filtering it through some tights should do similar though

[Blown2CV]

+1 for tights!

[SwanJack]

Best to dry hop with flowers or hop oil. You can even make a hop tea. I use flowers and they tend to float on top, some small bits of leaf get through, but not a slimey powder that you get with pellets. I used to use hop bags but get a much better result with chucking the flowers directly in to secondary.

Dry hopping was originally the cellar man's task, he'd chuck a handfull of hops directly into the cask, so the same beer could taste different from pub to pub, depending how it was dry hopped.

[marksx]

I have found my thread!

I am just gathering equipment to start brewing my own beer. I am in need of a boiler and a couple of other little bits and pieces short of starting.

I intend to brew using malt extract to start with, and if all goes well, move to all grain at a later date. My house is filling up with empty bottles already!

Edited by marksx on Monday 9th November 23:11

[Blown2CV]

marksx said:

I am a boiler

Don't put yourself down!

[marksx]

Blown2CV said:

Don't put yourself down!

Well, I've never been one to sing my own praises!

Now edited..