35 replies to this topic

[laker]

A newbie here , can't wait to try a new way of making cider . I live in the country and we always made our cider in a used 50 gal.whiskey barrel , I have a cider mill only a few miles from my house . We would go over to the mill sometimes with our own apples and have them pressed and then they would pump the cider into the barrel which was in the pick up truck . When we got it home and set up in the cellar we would add about 45 pds of white sugar and two ounces of salicylc acid , run a hose to a bottle of water and let it work until spring . It always turned out good never had any problems . What I didn't know was all the other ways of making cider and I wonder why there is no mention of making cider the way I mentioned on any brewing sites. What differences will I see when using yeast and the no boiling method that I see in alot of the recipes , will it be be better or very much the same??

[SKubrick]

A newbie here , can't wait to try a new way of making cider . I live in the country and we always made our cider in a used 50 gal.whiskey barrel , I have a cider mill only a few miles from my house . We would go over to the mill sometimes with our own apples and have them pressed and then they would pump the cider into the barrel which was in the pick up truck . When we got it home and set up in the cellar we would add about 45 pds of white sugar and two ounces of salicylc acid , run a hose to a bottle of water and let it work until spring . It always turned out good never had any problems . What I didn't know was all the other ways of making cider and I wonder why there is no mention of making cider the way I mentioned on any brewing sites. What differences will I see when using yeast and the no boiling method that I see in alot of the recipes , will it be be better or very much the same??

I've never made a cider, but the major points of brewing are similar here to what I've done. Adding yeast is really just a safety measure in some ways. Live yeast in the air will eventually get around to populating your brew and fermenting it, but other nasty biological critters will try to do so too. It's a race to see who wins. If the yeast doesn't win, your brew is worthless. Adding yeast just gives the yeast a huge advantage and prevents a failed fermentation. You also have some control over the flavor by using yeast, but I suspect a reputable cider yeast can only be an improvement over the wild variety.Beyond that there's just the question of using table sugar in your recipe, which is generally frowned on in the brewing hobby. They make better sugars for fermentation. Of course, if you're going to do 50 gallons, it's going to be expensive. I'd love to try some of your home cider some time though, it sounds like it has a great story behind it.

[laker]

GhostofPCR ,I wish I had some of my cider left for you to try and thats why I'm trying to learn more and get back into making cider . My barrel is empty after about 15 years of sipping the brew , it really got a nice color after about 12 years in the barrel and a good taste , not to say the first years weren't good either but it just kept getting better.I've always wondered about wild yeast and it being in the air ?? It didn't have much of a chance to get into the barrel the way we did it but thats what I have always been told , who knows ? When you mention regular table sugar not being the best are you referring to using brown sugar instead and if so will brown sugar make the cider stronger tasting ? Just lately I heard from a friend that was using 40 pds of white and 5 pds of brown in his next barrel but it was always just white as far as I new , what kind of changes would I notice going from white to brown?

[HarvInSTL]

I think most of this is wrong.

+1

[EWW]

Hey laker, what you're describing is what I would call an American Farmhouse hard cider for lack of a better term. My family did something very similar, but used a 20 gallon crock with a tight fitting wood lid. Nothing wrong with it at all. The practice seems to stem from German Apfelwein. From conversations with my grandfather my family would typically ice distill it in the winter months to make Apple Jack. Good to have you aboard!

[strangebrewer]

I think most of this is wrong.Wild fermenting cider is not from wild yeast in the air, it is from yeast that live in the apple itself.Adding table sugar is fine and just makes apple wine, not cider. Of course, I prefer to add honey to make cyser if I don't want a plain cider.

+1

Right or wrong he's the only one who made any attempt to actually answer the question. Please keep your replies on topic to the original post. Wild yeast is absolutely found in the air as it is found on the skin of fruit. The wild yeast found on the skin of the fruit will have a much higher population so it is what will win the population battle and become the primary fermenting strain. I wouldn't completely discount the yeast blowing in the wind though. As GhostofPCR said the practice of adding isolated and cultured yeast is done for the purpose of ensuring the fermentation goes the way you want it to go and to beat out the other yeast and bacteria. Otherwise it is a crap shoot what you get out of the fermentation. From past experience most wild apple cider ferments will tend to produce favorable results and some would say superior results to cultured yeast. That's a matter of opinion and what you want out of the final product. I would venture to guess that most people who have been making cider for a while will tend to do wild ferments since they do have more varied character than the isolated strains.I wouldn't say that table sugar is frowned upon but there are a LOT of options out there. Table sugar is 100% fermentable and will not contribute anything but alcohol. Brown sugar and the many available raw sugars have some unfermentable sugars in them so in addition to providing alcohol it will also lend some sweetness and body to the cider. Some of the character of the particular sugar will also come through depending on if you use brown sugar, palm sugar, raw cane sugar,..... I've never added brown sugar to a cider but in a beer I'll add about a pound per 5 gallons to get some character out of the sugar. I'm not sure 5lbs of brown sugar to 40lbs of table sugar would make a noticeable difference. I might start at 10lbs of brown sugar.When it comes to cider as Guest said I think honey is a favorite. Honey is 95% fermentable so while most of it ends up as alcohol the remaining 5% can add a lot of character. Ciders where the bulk of the fermentables are contributed by honey are called cysers and are one of my favorites. I make one every year and get requests for it from family and friends.Oh and welcome aboard Laker! I'm a former PA resident myself and while we get pretty good apples out here in CO it's nothing like what I could get in PA.

[Calder]

I've always wondered about wild yeast and it being in the air ?? It didn't have much of a chance to get into the barrel the way we did it but thats what I have always been told , who knows ? When you mention regular table sugar not being the best are you referring to using brown sugar instead and if so will brown sugar make the cider stronger tasting ? Just lately I heard from a friend that was using 40 pds of white and 5 pds of brown in his next barrel but it was always just white as far as I new , what kind of changes would I notice going from white to brown?

The wild yeast is on the skin of the apple. When crushed it is in the juice.I think he said table sugar was not the best because he is probably more used to brewing beers. In brewing beers, if a lot of table sugar is used (30%+ of the fermentable sugars), it is supposed to give a 'cidery' taste to the beer. What are you making here ..... CIDER! Table sugar is fine for cider. Also, a lot of commercial brewers use it in beer, a lot of English beers use it as part of their recipe, it is used in Belgian beers a lot too, and the candi sugar in Belgian beers is basically inverted table sugar. There is nothing wrong with it.

[strangebrewer]

Also, since the OP is reusing a barrel each year to ferment in, that wood substrate acts as a nice home for all the yeast to live. Chances are the barrel itself is the fermenting yeast. I'd say over those given decades of use, they have cultured a nice wild strain in that barrel.

Big +1 to this.At this point the wild yeast are resident in the barrel. Even if you tried to inoculate with a cultured strain it is going to be a fight unless you were to sulfite. If you like the product coming out of your barrel then I wouldn't try using a cultured strain.

[davelew]

This is completely false. Table sugar is 100% fermentable. Make a solution of sugar and water only, enough to ferment out to say 15% and pitch some wine yeast. The resultant 'wine' will taste only of alcohol, no cider smells/tastes.

I get a different tase from adding sugar or invert sugar to belgian beers. The invertase that yeast use on table sugar leave a certain taste that I don't like. I don't think it's the invertase itself, I think the invertase acts on other flavor compounds and create the disagreeable taste, but there IS a taste from adding too much sugar to beer.

[strangebrewer]

The cause of a cidery characteristic (which is the presence of acetaldehyde) in a beer is the result of a number of conditions being present. The main thing being an unhealthy fermentation and inadequate zinc levels. The yeast produce acetaldehyde normally during fermentation as an intermediate compound in alcohol production. They produce it and then reabsorb it as the fermentation tails off. This is why a young beer can show signs of being cidery as the yeast is still reabsorbing the acetaldehyde. Now if you add a whole lot of sugar then you're yeast will take off like rocket, possibly exceed their ABV tolerance, and drop out before they have the chance to reabsorb the acetaldehyde. I think this is where the 30% idea comes from but these conditions can occur without using any sugar all the same.

[laker]

Thanks for the welcome guys and all of the info. everyone has offered . I wondered to if the yeast was coming from the barrel , I've also been told if your going to use a cider barrel again that you shouldn't rinse it out because you want to leave the mother in the barrel , which could be your yeast .I had to cut my barrel in half for the wife because it developed a very bad crack in one of the boards and I didn't trust it for another use, now there planters ! , what really surprised me was how clean the inside of the barrel was , it looked like almost new ! still had the charcoal inside and the wood looked like new . I thought it would be full of sediment , this barrel was at least 15 years old or more ! Well without a whiskey barrel and the cost of them right now I'm going to try a couple carboys , I've been wanting to experiment with smaller quantities any way so I'm excited with the new possibility's . I came up with 5 recipes that I thought I could try but I don't understand why there so different , there all based on 1 to 5 gal. cider the odd part is some call for no sugar at all and some call for as much as 5 cups ! Why would some recipes call for no sugar ? I was trying to find a starting point for the amount of sugar. One of the recipes is for 1 gal. of cider and calls for 2 to 4 cups of lite brown sugar .

[laker]

Forgot to mention , I was told the salicyic acid was to prevent the cider from going to vinegar while it was in the barrel . Just to make things even more interesting , my father in law didn't use the salicylic acid at all but he did put in , in his own words a peck of rye !!

[EWW]

The sugar is only in the recipe to add alcohol. Many (including myself) like to just ferment the juice and feel no need to up the alcohol with sugar. Upping the alcohol and flavor with honey is a different story. You can easily play around with the amount of sugar to determine how much alcohol you want in your batch. Many here use the Spreadsheet to do this. Simply add your juice and play around with the amount of sugar till you get what you want. Batches with a higher alcohol content will take longer to mellow out, and take into consideration the alcohol limit of your yeast strain. If you're going with a beer yeast strain you'll be good to keep it under 10% ABV. Wine and mead yeasts can handle in the 14-18% range depending on the strain. In my experience 2 lbs of sugar per 5 gallon tends to give a nice result.

[laker]

EWW , Thanks for the suggestion on the amount of sugar , I'll try that . What percent of alcohol would you expect to get if there was no sugar added ? Compared to 2 pounds of sugar ?

[EWW]

Straight cider will ferment from around 1.050 (+/-10 gravity pts) to near 1.000 giving you an ABV in the range of 7%. With the addition of the 2 lbs of sugar you are looking at around 9-10% based on my rough mental math

[laker]

Could I add some honey and some sugar or is it best to do one or the other , and what would be the ratio of sugar to honey ? Man I'm seeing a lot of variables here !!!!!! this could get out hand real quick , I'll need more carboys !!!

[EWW]

Personally, I'd do one or the other. In a cyser (cider + honey) you get a lot of aroma and flavor from the varietal of honey you use. When done well they are manna from heaven. I'm not sure I would dillute the honey characteristics you get from the honey with neutral fermenting sugar. I'm sure it would be tasty, but that not something I would do. As I mentioned before the cider and sugar combo makes a really nice applejack. As the artisan you get complete control. That's half the fun.

[laker]

I want to try making my old recipe and a new one with wyeast , I was doing the math trying to duplicate the amount of sugar I used in the barrel and see how much it would be in a 5 gal carboy . I was using 40 to 45 pds of sugar to 40 gal of cider , so its about one pd. of sugar to one gallon of cider , so in the carboy It would be 5 pds. of sugar or about 10 cups !!!!! That sounds like way to much , whats wrong with my ratio ?

[EWW]

There is nothing wrong with the way you've done it in the past if you like the results you've gotten in the past. Laker's Original Recipe™ would give you something in the 12-13% ABV range if it ferments to terminal dryness. Without the barrel (and it's resident yeast) you may get a slightly diffeent result if you add that much sugar and do not pitch a commercial yeast. 5 lbs of sugar per 5 gallons is not unheard of for fruit wines. Two of my friends from my homebrew club will use about that amount in some of their fruit wines. If you attempt to do this with the natural yeast from the apples I would have some dry wine yeast as a contingency plan.

[davelew]

I want to try making my old recipe and a new one with wyeast , I was doing the math trying to duplicate the amount of sugar I used in the barrel and see how much it would be in a 5 gal carboy . I was using 40 to 45 pds of sugar to 40 gal of cider , so its about one pd. of sugar to one gallon of cider , so in the carboy It would be 5 pds. of sugar or about 10 cups !!!!! That sounds like way to much , whats wrong with my ratio ?

With your old recipe, what do you remember of the taste of the end product? Was it sweet like fresh apple cider? Was it incredibly tart like one of those sour apple candies?Here's why I ask: First, a cider fermented to completion tends to be extremely tart. Second, wild yeasts often don't have very high alcohol tolerances. I wonder if your Laker Cider™ was at the alcohol limit of the yeast, with the additional sugar working like back-sweetening. If that's the case, you will get a VERY different product with Wyeast or other commercial yeasts added to your cider.