First cider advice

[Daniel Ashman]

Hi all,

I'm going to attempt my first cider and was after some advice.

Has anyone come across a source of cider apple juice (100% apple juice, no additives or preservatives, ideally with a good mix of apples). I am in Auckland. I want to do a 30L batch.

I know some have said they have used Fresh-up juice with good results but was wondering if I could find something better suited. Alternatively I could try and get my hands on some seconds apples and build my own press, but this is a lot of work for my first cider.

Also I harvested a decent amount of Passion Fruit last season that I froze and would like to use in this cider. Any advice on how to prepare/use it? Should I add it after primary fermentation is complete? If so do I need to do anything to it before adding or just defrost, scoop out the contents of the fruit and add to fermenter (seeds and all)?

I have a malt mechanics conical fermenter so was thinking of cold crashing and removing yeast after primary has finished, then leaving for say 3 or 4 more weeks to condition before bottling.

Has used a yeast with a lower attention to leave a small amount of sweetness? I have read that there may be an enzyme in Passion Fruit that inhibits yeast growth. This would mean my bottles wouldn't carbonate.

Any advice much appreciated.

[Grant R Baker]

I am a Fresh Up fan myself (Apple and Pear) so I can't help on that count.. as for the Passion Fruit Just mix it in with the inital juice.. add some yeast nutriant if you are concerned but you can also heat the added fruit in a sausepan (with some apple juice) to kill of any bugs, bacteria etc... just bring it all up to 80C for a couple of minutes then dump into your fermenter full off apple juice.

A 30L batch will require a lot of passion friut to make a decernable difference... I used about 2Kg of Raspberries on one 20l batch... that worked pretty well, as did the Mixed Berry mix.

I keg and carb my ciders but I taste it before kegging to decide if any back sweetening is required... normally Stelvia sweeter does the trick.

[Daniel Ashman]

Thanks for the reply. Some people were saying that if you add the passion fruit with the yeast you lose some of the fruity character.

I can't remember exactly how much passion fruit I ended up with but I may do a smaller batch than 30L if I don't have enough.

[Grant R Baker]

Well I have dry hopped a cider (and mead) with raspberries and I did get a more raspberry flovour so there is probably some truth to what they are saying.

Just be worth considering intruction a fermentable into the cider after primary fermentation has taken place.. it will start again if it wants to.

[Liam Callaghan]

My first time I bought a crate of apples from Hawks bay (400kg) and we had a weekend mashing them and pressing using Mr Jacks press.  We left them to keeve overnight to add more flavour and complexity and added a monster sized pot of tannin rich tea to give it some body.  Awesome cider in the end (about 300 litres with two pressings) with mixed apples.

One of the nicest smaller batches we made from it was using Farmhouse Ale yeast, the french/belgium one, which added an awesome flavour profile.

My mate makes it with Fresh Up and frankly its fantastic and takes him 10 minutes.  Not as much fun for a weekend and fresh squeezed apple juice is amazing to drink as it is. 

My recommendation would be use Fresh Up for your first few brews and get good at the ferment side, find a yeast you like and work with your hops or other fruit flavour additions then have a pop with fresh apples.  Shame to go to all that effort and fail on the fermentation side or find your cider is to dry to enjoy.  You can make up 3x 10 litre batches with Fresh Up in less time than it takes to perk a pot of coffee.

Thirsty now :)

[Daniel Ashman]

Thanks Liam. I think this is good advice and I'll probably go the  juice way this time. Only thing would be if I could get my hands on some freshly squeezed juice rather than Fresh Up but for my first cider probably not worth worrying about.

I also saw mention that with cider you have to monitor to the pH to make sure it doesn't turn into vinegar. Would this be true for the Fresh Up method?

I'll go with adding the Passion Fruit after primary fermentation has completed to try and get more of the flavour through.

[Liam Callaghan]

I'm not sure about the pH mate, it was a while ago and I often forget stuff :)

The main thing I remember was the addition of tannin to provide some body and the use of pectin enzyme to break down the pectin in the apples once you'd pulped them.  Pectin is what makes the apples crunchy, pectinase (?) breaks the pectin down so they become soft and you can extract more juice from them.  We left them over night with the enzyme and left them to keeve, the smell in the morning was amazing as was the juice. 

I'm sure you can get fresh apple juice already squeezed, Tanked have some pretty big commercial juicers and I bet any of their outlets would do you a good deal if you provided the apples.  Apples were 50c a kg direct from Hawks Bay from memory and $30 for the crate as I wasn't going to ship it back.  There was an apple orchard out near Hallertau but he wanted $2/kg and I had to go and pick them up so cheaper to just get it shipped to my door from the other side of the country.

Looking online

http://fruitdirect.co.nz/buy-fruit/juice

http://chantalorganics.co.nz/product/nz-apple-juice/

http://www.millorchard.co.nz/juices.html

These guys all bottle their own apple juice it seems, not sure how they are in relation to Fresh Up, but FU makes a good cider.  doesn't seem right I know but damn it tastes good if its brewed right.  Having spoken to Chris who makes the cider I drink its down to knowing your yeast and stopping it when you still have some residual sweetness.

[Daniel Ashman]

I ended up going with half Keri Apple Juice and Half Fresh Up Crisp Green apple juice this time. The Keri juice claims to be 99.8% fruit juice (from concentrate) and the Fresh Up 60%. It measure 1.043 OG so a little low but if it finishes right out to 1.002 as estimated should be about 5.4% ABV. Might go up a bit when I add the passionfruit too.

I used the Mangrove Jack's Craft Series M02 Cider Yeast. Made a 1L starter from 2 packets.

[Daniel Ashman]

Going to add in the passion fruit over the weekend after draining some of the yeast.

Any advice on how to prepare the passion fruit? Some have said to pasteurize it by slowly bringing it up to about 60degC for 15 min or so. Others have suggested using a campden tablet. Others just to add it directly without worrying. I don't want to do anything that will kill off the yeast or damage the flavour of the fruit.

Last gravity readying I took (about a week after adding the yeast) came out at 1.013. This is a bit higher than I expected. I'll take another reading today. Adding the passion fruit should set off fermentation again and bump up the gravity points a bit more.