A great cider book is "The Art of Cidermaking" by Paul Correnty. It takes you through apple selection, sanitization, yeasts, etc.. It also has some good recipes.
When making my cider, I usually sulfite the juice and let it sit for 24 hours. This stuns the wild yeasts found naturally on the apple skins. After 24 hrs I rack into my primary fermenter trying to splash as much as possible to aerate and drive off the sulfur. This kind of gives a blank slate for my yeast starter. I like to use the saison strains myself. The rest is pretty much straight forward.
My HB club will be pressing cider on the 27th. I gotta get some kegs ready!
Help please. Just received an e-mail from the orchard informing me my 4 gal of fresh cider have preservatives added (not what they told me when I bought it.)
On the cider show Doc mentions that this can be overcome with a big starter. I have two vials of WLP001 itiching to be used.
Can I ferment or have I got a lot of fresh cider to drink??????
Last call for help...planning on 5 pkgs of SAF 005 into 4 gallons of cider. I think it has a small amount of preserative which I know will inhibit growth but maybe not fermentation??
I'll take any recommendations at this point....I may just buy more cider (if I can find some) and use the stuff with the preseratives as a backsweetener.
Does the answer maybe depend on the type of preservative? I know some ciderists (like Emmett, above) add stuff like campden tablets to the fresh cider to kill off any natural buggies. After some time (a few days?), this bug-killing effect fades and yeast added to the cider at that point won't be affected. Would leaving the cider sit for a few days before pitching yeast maybe let the preservatives fade away a bit?
Good question. I am betting not, but it does beg the question since it still has an expiration date. LHBS told me not to bother...and recommended a local orchard where I can buy apples and they'd point me to a farmer who presses them.
So I made my first cider, along the lines of what bub recommended. I added 2lbs of brown sugar and 6 oz of raisins to 4.5 gallons of cider that was pressed by the horticulture club from my university. I held back .5 gallons to act as a back sweetener if it is needed. I pitched one package of Cal Ale yeast.
I had a question about sterilization. This cider was pressed by a commercial business that sterilizes everything using UV light. I was wondering if anyone had experience with this sort of medium and how effective this is at actually killing off all the bugs that might live in cider normally. Should I expect a pretty sterile must from this cider pressing. I tasted the juice and it seemed quite normal(although low in acid and tannins), not like boiled or otherwise pasteurized product might taste. Where would I look to see what this is actually doing to my juice?
as far as sterilization goes just get the yeast in right away and hope it overwhealms any baddies
and DO NOT EVER BOIL APPLE JUICE if you want to use it for cider... actually this goes for all juices... this is how you make jelly not cider.
BUB
Lunch Meet "Limpian" Gold Medalist (x2) 2006 Winner of <b>NO PANTS</b> award 2006 and 2007 Make your own beer website... starting at $10 per YEAR. www.bubweb.com & www.momenttoponder.com
