I'm going to get 15 gallons today, and another 5 gallons next week after I get paid. This year I'm doing 10 gallons with Nottingham and 10 gallons with Safale S-04. Last year I just did 5 gallons with Nottingham and it turned out to be very drinkable.

I used Chimay yeast once, I need to do that again. It was incredible. Very fruity!

Hmm, I'll look into experimenting with that next year. It sounds interesting.

I'm going to try Côte des Blancs this year.

The yeast is pitched and already working.Waiting is always the hard part.

Is this a general cider thread for this year? If so, I have a question...





I started my first ever batch of cider on August 9, and I don't know if I need to be worried about it.





I got the recipe from homebrewtalk (see below).



It sat in the carboy for 4 weeks, and we racked it into a secondary today. It smelled REALLY REALLY yeasty. It tasted sour and gross. It had stopped bubbling the airlock, but it was still pretty cloudy.



My question: Did I ruin it? What's going on with it?

The recipe seems a little too complicated but I'm betting it turned out ok. Give it a little time (a few more weeks - a month) to clear up. How was your sanitary practice? Did you clean your equipment really well and use a sanitizer like Star San? Cider is pretty easy and if your sanitizing your equipment as you should, things should turn out ok.

My recipe is pretty simple.

Cider (actual pressed cider): The stuff I get is heat pasteurized which I don't care for personally, but it is what is available to me at the moment. It still works pretty good.
Yeast: Nottingham ale yeast or Safale S-04. You can use other yeasts obviously, but know that wine and champagne yeasts usually ferment out really dry and may have something to so with your cider being "sour and gross". It may be very dry and take a while to mellow out.

Another thing to think about is the sweetness of your juice. Keep in mind that taste is subjective, but I read somewhere that sweeter apples don't necessarily make better cider.

We used StarSan on everything. I've never done cider before, and I had a lot of difficulty with finding recipes online. Most weren't very specific, which is why I used that one.



I'll leave it and hopefully it will mellow out.

Yeah it probably will. It likely will taste better when it clears. Suspended yeast doesn't taste very good either.

How do I get started?  What gear do I need and what do I need to know?
I love European ciders, been drinking them since 1990.  
Apples/juice here is excellent.

Have you made anything else? Wine? Beer? It doesn't require anything other than equipment you would already have if you are a home brewer. I would say at the minimum:

Oxyclean and Star San (or similar) for cleaning and sanitizing.
A brewing bucket (if you don't do primary fermentation in a carboy)
2 carboys (plastic or glass, your preference. you want 2 so you have one to rack into)
Auto siphon or racking cane
Hose for auto siphon or racking cane.
Bottles for containing delicious hard cider
Caps for said bottles or Grolsch bottles (they have swing tops and that's what I use. Your local bars may have empties to give or sell cheap.)

I recommend a kit at first. They usually come with every thing you need. This would probably get you through your first batch if you don't already have equipment. It doesn't seem to include sanitizer though so you would probably want to buy some of that too.

http://www.midwestsupplies.com/midwest-supplies-cider-essentials-kit.html

Thanks. I've never brewed anything but this interests me.

No problem. It's a fun hobby if you have the patience and the space to have full jugs of cider (or whatever) sitting around for a couple months at a time. You said you like European ciders. Here's an interesting article about cider apples vs eating and cooking apples. While still tasty (to me). It may not come out like you would expect.

http://modernfarmer.com/2014/04/americas-hard-cider-boom-one-problem-enough-apples/

That has worked well for me. I find champagne yeast leaves the cider too dry as it doesn't leave as much residual sugar.

got mine it, only 5 gallons.

this year Im going to kill the yeast with potassium sorbate after they are through, and back sweeten with concentrate plus a little apple essence to make it pop.

I hate cider but the people that drink it like the sweet apple taste, not dry. I will throw it in 2 litre bottles and hit it with c02 serve chilled.

I've wanted to try making cider for a while, but never got around to it. I like cider, but I prefer it a bit on the dry side.  I haven't brewed beer in a few years either, maybe I should try a batch of cider.

I racked the Safeale S-04 stuff into clean carboys and took a gravity reading. It started at 1.05 and is now at 1.00, making it 6.5% ABV. The Nottingham batch is still working, so I left it where it is. I'm expecting it to be very dry at 7-8% ABV.

Got a Cyser going  5.5 gallon batch using local cider, half a gallon of tart cherry juice, 5 pounds of wild flower honey and a smack pack of Wyeast Sweet Mead.  I make 5-10 Gallons a year and have no complaints on the sweet mead yeast, this is the first time with the tart cherry juice.  Hopefully it will come close to Zombie Killer from B. Nektar with around double the ABV

This thread has me thinking I need to plant some cider apple trees.
Best varieties?

"Best" is subjective. I would say do your research. Maybe go to a tasting. Find out what you like or don't like. Next summer I'm going to try to get a buddy to go with me to this place to do my own research into the same venture. I know there are a few varieties but I have no clue what any of them taste like as far as cider goes.

https://www.albemarleciderworks.com/

They sell trees and cider, and they have tastings. There may be places like this closer to you.

I have a gallon jug of cyser still sitting around waiting to be bottled. It should be good enough to drink now, but I'm lazy and haven't had the motivation to do it.

Ciders differ greatly depending on location. Just like tastes differ. The trick of course is to try and find a cider recipe that you like.

I spend a lot of time in Frankfurt, Germany as a young guy. Hence I prefer my hard cider to be made from fresh unfiltered apple juice. And dry. Very dry. Veeeeeeery dry!

Most commercial offered ciders are way too sweet for me here in the US. If you read the labels it's around 20 grams of sugars per serving in some of them. That's like apple juice with alcohol to me. Yuck.
Compared to Possman's or similar cider from Frankfurt with less than 1 gram of carb per serving.

Currently I'm having good luck fermenting the unfiltered but pasteurized apple juice from Whole Foods. It comes in a 1 gallon carboy for $8. (365 Whole Foods brand). The carboy alone costs around $4 to $5 if I were to buy it. So, to me, that's a good deal on the juice. And very handy. Just take out a cup or two to make room for some foaming. Add the yeast. Airlock on and wait... Voila, hard cider...

I'm using EC1118 champagne yeast for the fermentation. No sugars added. Ends up with around 5 to 6% abv. This will result in very dry cider, which I prefer (just in case I didn't mention that before...   ).

I'm also experimenting with other yeasts just for the heck of it. These seem to be the most popular:  Nottingham ($4.59), Safale S-04 ($3.50), WLP002 ($8.00), WLP028 ($8.00), WLP862 ($8.00), Red Star Côte des Blancs ($0.99), Danstar Saison Belle ($5.99), Vintner's Harvest SN9 ($3.00) and Vintner's Harvest VR21 ($3.00). The prices may vary in your area of course. There are also cider yeasts offered from most yeast manufacturers but I haven't tried those yet. Interestingly enough most (but not all) online recipes stay clear of those. I'm not sure why.

After deactivating the yeast you could back sweeten your cider until you hit your 'sweet' spot.

I'm also using the Grolsch type bottles. Those flip tops are very handy.

I did 10 gallons this year.
5 gallons with honey and Wyeast 1056 American ale
5 gallons with Belgian candy syrup and Belgian Abby ale 2

I should be bottling it soon

You like dry ciders but are using safale04 and wlp002?  Both are British ale yeast's and have pretty low attenuation, around 60-65ish %.

S04 is rated about 75% and 002 is about 70% I believe-though can get better if you swirl it back up and warm it at the end IMO.  They aren't 60-65ish in my experience with beer even, let alone simple sugar ciders (I haven't used them for that though) so i would think they would be fine...

Not to hijack here, but I'm a huge Strongbow/Bulmers fan (not the crap in the US).  Anyone have any fun similar recipes?  All my attempts have been a little on the extra dry side.

It looks like Strongbow's recipe is just a blend of bitter-sweet cider and culinary apples. In Europe the AVB% is typically 4.5% to 5%. They have a few other ingredients in it such as glucose syrup, glucose-fructose syrup, food acidifier: malic acid, anti-oxidant: sulphur dioxide, colouring agent: cochineal, and burned sugar.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strongbow_%28cider%29

Rather than add all of those other ingredients, I would stick to pressed cider and yeast and control your temperature. Temperature control might be more money and effort than you are willing to spend though.The other option is to back sweeten with more cider or use sugar, only after cold crash and/or campden and sorbate stabilization.

Great advice, thanks!

I didn't bother even reading and I have probably sinned by using bread yeast.

I bought a bottle of pure apple juice from walmart. Figured what the heck, why not.


I added about 1 cup of sugar and 1/4 cup mulling spices for making hot cider.  I just did the math and added the amount per the instructions. I did this 24 hours ago and the yeast is going nuts.


I took the airlock off for a second to get a smell and it's just nasty smelling. However I took another deep smell and got a big bouquet of smells from the mulling apices. I've used them before just for hot cider and it's damn good. Was hoping this might work out ok. I'm making it for Christmas


.  I'm going to transfer it as soon as the bubbles slow down to start getting the yeast out of there. Hopefully that will reduce the doughy taste if there is any

Bread yeast doesn't attenuate well, so you'll likely have quite a sweet cider with that sugar addition.   It also can give some off flavors and that's why it is not generally used for this purpose.  Ciders often smell bad as they're fermenting, typically giving off a sulfur smell.  The cause is a lack of nutrition for the yeast.  The solution is to add yeast nutrient before pitching the yeast.

I wanted sweet. What do you suggest for a nutrient?

 

A homebrewing store or Amazon sells it as yeast nutrient or DAP.  It's diammonium phosphate, sometimes with a few extra things.

DAP is just a usable source of nitrogen for yeast and is not sufficient as a stand alone addition. Get some fermaid-k and some DAP. the general dosage is 4-5 grams  of fermaid-k per 5 gallons, and  2-3 grams of DAP. If you are doing one gallon batches, just divide these numbers by 5.

Since there is action in this thread again, I'll say that I'm starting a little later this year and getting my cider this weekend. This year I'm only doing 5 gallons of plain cider, and 5 gallons of cyser. I already have 5 gallons of mead in secondary, so I should have plenty to drink this year. I'm also getting into kegging this year. The cyser will be going into wine bottles and the plain cider into my keg.

Forgive my ignorance as I am a complete novice. What is the difference between cyser and cider?

Again, as a novice. I have been checking on my cider daily. It's just sitting on the kitchen counter so I just stop and look at the airlock once a day when I walk past it. It had slowed down a few days ago. Last night it had completely stopped fermenting. I put a flashlight up to the bottle just to make sure, there were no bubbles whatsoever. I decided that since the yeast was done or dead, I would siphon off the good stuff and wash out the bottle and rebottle it.

So, that's what I did. I put the air lock on it. I noticed that a bit of yeast has fallen out of suspension. Still, no bubbles though. I think it's done. It smells very strongly of alcohol and I tasted a small bit. It's hot for sure. How can I make it mellow out?

Cyser is Mead made with apple cider instead of water. Honey and apple cider.

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Let it sit for a while. Depending on how much sugar you added it will take longer.


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That. Sounds. AWESOME! keep us posted i might be trying this soon.

Is it too late to do a batch and have it ready for Christmas?  Also I do not have any bottles, I went straight to kegging my beer.  I'm assuming I can keg cider or possible buy the bottles from Whole Food as suggested above.