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Put this together last night....got bored...not brewing until tomorrow...needed to ferment something.
I was going to make another batch of Hard Lemonade, but wanted to try something different.
I will ferment dry, then kill the yeast, and back sweeten with frozen apple juice concentrate (3-5 cans i'm guessing), then keg

5 us gal of apple juice
5lbs of light brown sugar
1/8 cup of lemon juice
yeast nutrient
US-05
OG 1.080


I heated 2L of apple juice to disolve the sugar, added the lemon juice here
now we wait...

I did a batch similar to that a couple of years ago, turned out great and the non-beer drinkers around here really enjoyed it.

awesome...cider seems pretty straight forward to me...juice, sugar, yeast...
the thought of a totally dry/flat cider didn't appeal to me...so the back sweetening and carb'ing is a must...

I didn't back sweeten or carb mine. It drank more like wine than cider for sure. For folks that wanted carbonation, I just splashed some club soda into the glass.

Kegging it will also allow me to carb and then park it til the nicer weather gets here (july?), then tap it for the hot summer-ie masses

Chugging away like mad in the carboy...

Let me know how it turns out Justin. I may try this if my apple and pear tree produce anything this year.

Will do

2 weeks in the primary now...still lots of airlock action...I may rack this over to a 2nd carboy tomorrow night, to help with conditioning.

Cider is tasting good. ..og was 1.080 and its at 1.014 now...so the yeast has almost capped out at 82% attenuation, thats about all you can expect from us-05. ..that makes it 8.66%...so im guessing it will finish soon at 9%. Its very nice rite now, still some nice sweetness left...not boozy tasting...it just needs to clear...then I will kill the yeast and back sweeten just a touch with frozen apple concentrate...about 2 more weeks im guessing then keg it

jacinthebox wrote:Cider is tasting good. ..og was 1.080 and its at 1.014 now...so the yeast has almost capped out at 82% attenuation, thats about all you can expect from us-05. ..that makes it 8.66%...so im guessing it will finish soon at 9%. Its very nice rite now, still some nice sweetness left...not boozy tasting...it just needs to clear...then I will kill the yeast and back sweeten just a touch with frozen apple concentrate...about 2 more weeks im guessing then keg it

Sound good

i wont have to add much (if any) to back sweeten it...it tastes pretty damn good now...i will pick something up to help clear it tho...well after i give it 2 more weeks on its own

I kegged this last week...tastes pretty good with some carb in it...

It's an ass kicker tho lol

Sounds really good!

Instead of lemon you could try 1 can or so of cranberry concentrate next time. Might clarify a slight bit better than with lemon?

Cant wait until apple season!

Also is good to bottle carbonate, but it would be dry then of course. I am jelous of the kegged cider.

.....Also strong still dry cider i.e. apple wine is pretty good as long as it is tart enough imo

Cider and Jac,

Would you change anything else in this recipe? I'm going to shoot for a 6.5% non-sweetened cider that is keg carbed. I'll try CBW's suggestion on the cranberry concentrate instead of the lemon. I'll also reduce the sugar addition to bring the OG to a 6.5% level (going to assume 1.010 FG as US-05 always does well for me).

Cheers,

Tim

We did a straight cider last month with apples from my buddys yard...crushed a shit ton of apple to get 5 gal of juice...heated it to kill the wild yeast...added pectin. ..pitched ale yeast...let it ride for a month. ..added yeast killer. ..back sweetened with 2 cans of frozen concentrate and kegged...this turned out better than the last batch....og was 1.050

Just a suggestion, to clear use Bentonite, about 0.25 to 0.5 g/l after your primary. The duration of the secondary will clean it right up into a clear amber colour. The Bentonite forms kind of a crusty mud at the bottom of the secondary and it takes most of the protein and yeast with it.

Making my first cider on Wednesday. So far my plan is:

9 liters of PC pure cider
S-04 yeast
1/2 teaspoon tannins
pectic enzyme

Ferment, kill yeast, back sweetened with 1 can of frozen concentrate and keg.

Any idea how quickly the process is? Beer like fermentation times?

gm- wrote:Making my first cider on Wednesday. So far my plan is:

9 liters of PC pure cider
S-04 yeast
1/2 teaspoon tannins
pectic enzyme

Ferment, kill yeast, back sweetened with 1 can of frozen concentrate and keg.

Any idea how quickly the process is? Beer like fermentation times?

I'd guess 4-7 days. Never done it with S-04, so YMMV

Might want to consider some yeast nutrient at start of fermentation.

gm- wrote:Making my first cider on Wednesday. So far my plan is:

9 liters of PC pure cider
S-04 yeast
1/2 teaspoon tannins
pectic enzyme

Ferment, kill yeast, back sweetened with 1 can of frozen concentrate and keg.

Any idea how quickly the process is? Beer like fermentation times?

I used S04 in my cider I got from Noble Grape one year and it was the best I made so far. The ferment time will be about the same as beer, i gave mine some extra time to clear after initial ferment.

Thanks guys, will add some yeast nutrient at the start. Just bought 3 big gallon jugs of cider. That crap is expensive!

And so we begin, O.G. 1.050.

http://www.kijiji.ca/v-buy-sell-other/d ... 1034075399" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

No price on this.

Sandy

Looks similar to what I bought. I paid $7/4 litre jug. Looks like fermentation has mostly died down. Will give it couple of days to clear, and then keg before a party on Saturday.