Brewing a cider

[Paul Fraser]

So, after a brief discussion last night with a few other brewers I am now thinking about making a cider. I have 2 feijoa trees so maybe might do a feijoa cider. Just wondering on the how's of cider. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Cheers

[Tilt]

Good on ya Paul - a worthy pursuit and a bit of local experience hereabouts. 

Check out this thread  for a recent discussion on the topic.

[Paul Fraser]

Good man Tilt. Plenty of info to get me started. Cheers

[Ralph]

Paul this page here pretty much covers it all http://www.cider.org.uk/frameset.htm

If bottling your cider like your beer you will always end up with a very dry cider as they will ferment through to about 1.001 or so.

Getting the right mix of apples so that you don't end up with something that is too bland or something that is too sharp is a bit of a trick

I have made a cider each year for the last three years. It can be a heap of work for not much cider! First two years we used a centrifugal juicer... Took ages to get like 15 liters.

Last year we used an old insinkerater to mush the apples (it kept tripping the overload and was a pain in the arse) and a proper hydraulic press. Got 50 liters. Fermented fine but the mix of apples means it has way too much bite... I have been meaning to experiment and see if I can save it, but haven't got around to it yet.

There are a lot of free apples around Christchurch... Just got to get out and pick them.

[Paul Fraser]

Awesome stuff. It takes a lot longer than I thought. I will do some research and start planning.

[Ralph]

There is the easy option of buying some cheap preservative free apple juice and using that. If you are adding feijoas you may not need to get worried about the mix of apples as the feijoas will add flavour and bite...

[Crusader-Rob]

the Juice from the supermarket is what I did. It will come out quite dry. I'll bring some next time, hopefully it keep improving. I added sugar as well to mine, if you use juice there will be no need to pasteurise either can basically just added it directly through.

[Crusader-Rob]

By the way, when I added my fruit in the secondary, I froze, defrosted, and scooped then re-froze and defrosted, then added to the secondary. I recommend putting this into a grain or muslin bag, to try and prevent crap getting into the beer.

I use this recipe as a base: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/edworts-apfelwein-33986/