My brewing contribution

[mrsbrown]

Edit:  The background:
On the weekend a bunch of people collected at a house near Trentham.  We crushed about 1000kg of apples and got about 250L of juice.  We need to do some work to increase the yield.  This brewing story is about the 20L of juice I got to experiment with.

Brew experiment 1
The elderberry juice (1L) has been added to the apple juice (14L) and an enormous amount fo froth has been wiped from the outside of the demijohn and my laundry floor.  The EC1118 (champagne yeast) was pitched this morning and tonight the foam is escaping out of the airlock.  It's a lovely colour.

Brew experiment 2
There's about 6L of juice left and its started its natural fermentation.  Tonight I added 500g of malt and half a packet of ale yeast (Safale 05).  I plan to rack it before the fermentation is completed and then leave it for a longer time.  Hopefully, I'll get a sweeter cider that doesn't explode bottles.  I don't have a suitable container for my hydrometer so I used this site to estimate the likely alcohol content.  Previous apple juices had an sg of 1040, so I estimated the equivalent sugar content and then worked out the alcohol level when I added the malt.  It's about 8.5%, although the juice I tasted tonight wasn't as sweet as commercial apple juice and the racking will leave behind some sugar.  Maybe the final alcohol content will be closer to 8%.

There's talk of more juice production on the weekend.  Maybe we should use some ale yeasts and some natural fermentation in that juice.

I may need to invest in more fermenters, or else just silicon bungs and airlocks for my carboys.

Comments

[doushkasmum]

Bungs for the carboys is the cheap option. If we are going to be producing cider at these rates we need more vessels of some kind and smaller ones are good for experimenting. It is harder to get enough elderberry juice for a 100L drum 8-> Plus it might not be nice, what a waste..

[inspiral_rose]

Yum yum yum. I think this means your cider is gluten free? Double extra yum!

[doushkasmum]

Er, isn't all cider gluten free? What additive that goes in cider has gluten?!? *boggles*

[inspiral_rose]

Proper French cider is gluten-free and Bulmer's is and a couple of other small label ones, but I think Little Creatures uses their beer yeast to make Pipsqueak so it has wheat in it somehow and the same is true of most of the other cider makers who also make beer. I can't remember if Strongbow is gluten-free. I seem to remember it's not.

It's not so odd when you think that no beer is gluten-free. There are even some spirits you have to worry about because they're rye-based... some of the vodkas are wheat-based. You have to know which ones are potato or corn or are triple-distilled because a decent distillation removes the gluten...

[mrsbrown]

On that basis I suspect my 6L brew may not be gluten free - I've used malt.

I'm not seeing how beer yeast has gluten, unless they are introducing lees from the beer process to add the yeast - possible.

[inspiral_rose]

Ah yep, malt will do it. I was presuming they had a pre-made yeast-malt mix that they added to beer and cider... I'm not really clear on how the brewing process occurs as I've never done it.

And now that you mention it, I think malt is why Strongbow isn't gluten-free. I blame my illness for why I can't think straight right now...

[doushkasmum]

Also, I think this apple juice has a hight specific gravity. When I measured on Saturday my 2 came out at 1046 and 1048 (different blends). When I measured on Sunday they all came out at 1052. At some point on Sunday I broke my hydrometer but I am fairly sure it was after I did all the tests (I dropped it after cleaning). I was surprised they were all the same but I fiddled a lot and it kept coming up the same. Anyway, a ramble to say you may have a stronger brew than you think. 8-> Must go get another one.