Cider Making

[Peasgood]

2 minutes ago, Stere said:

 Think id prefer to make  apple juice but need to work out best way to sterilize/pasterize etc the bottle without too much faff....

On a small scale, put the bottles of juice in a pan of water, heat until the juice is 75°C, put the lids on and lay the bottles on their sides to cool.

On their sides means the hot juice gets the lid done too.

Should have a shelf life of 2 years if you do that and in reality will keep for many years longer but quality deteriorates.

That is pretty much what I do but on a larger scale.

[Stere]

Thanx

 

I had/have a few dozen  old corona pop bottles I do elderflower champange in  but are to tall for the pans top half would be  well out of the water

 

Think i'd need a taller pan/or shorter bottles?

 

Alot of them unfortunately exploded a few yrs back as to much fizz in the elderflower 😏

 

 

 

 

[Steve Bullman]

17 minutes ago, Stere said:

I had/have a few dozen  old corona pop bottles

Antiques!

[peatff]

We've juiced a lot of our apples and my wife has frozen the juice in flat take out trays 1 pint in each then taken it out and put it in bags.

[Commando]

6 hours ago, Peasgood said:

On a small scale, put the bottles of juice in a pan of water, heat until the juice is 75°C, put the lids on and lay the bottles on their sides to cool.

On their sides means the hot juice gets the lid done too.

Should have a shelf life of 2 years if you do that and in reality will keep for many years longer but quality deteriorates.

That is pretty much what I do but on a larger scale.

I opened a bottle of juice that was 2yrs old at the weekend, still as tasty as the day it was bottled!

Ive done 3 x 30L of cider and 56 x 750mm bottles of juice this year. Trees are still hanging with fruit.

Edited October 11, 2022 by Commando
Duplicate photo

[Peasgood]

4 hours ago, Commando said:

I opened a bottle of juice that was 2yrs old at the weekend, still as tasty as the day it was bottled!

Ive done 3 x 30L of cider and 56 x 750mm bottles of juice this year. Trees are still hanging with fruit.

I started out on a commercial scale with the exact same setup, not a million miles away from my current setup other than the press is hydraulic rather than ratcheting bar.

[Slad]

Making perry this year for the first time since we moved in.  Great year for top fruit here - trees groaning.

 

Made a scratter out of wood we milled earlier in the year, a fence post and a handful of screws but bought a simple screw press. Life's too short. Going to make something more like the kit in the photo above next year though, which looks great.  Probably going to keep the screw, but use it with an 8T bottle jack instead of adding wood blocks every 5 minutes.  

 

We're keeping the trees' jucice in separate demijohns so we can see what each pear is like and done some with high alcohol yeast and some with normal Youngs.  Too impatient to wait like all the books say so brewing it fast like a beer in the boiler room.  The air locks look like steam trains!

 

A neighbour advised adding back water to the same volume of water taken off and repressing.  Worked well although the ABV will probably be 3.5 - 4%, which will be OK for "session" drinking I guess?

 

Top tip for bottles; we have a discount shop near us which sells stuff near its sell by date.  I bought 2 x 40 bottles of Grolsch (454ml) for £21 each.  This is a bit cheaper than the bottles I was looking at on Amazon plus I get to give the Boy 40 bottles of lager to drink with his mates into the bargain.

 

Any top tips for cider?  I've made lots of wine and beer before but cider is new to me.  We have a couple of apple trees and a crab apple so might give it a go.  (Went for perry first because we have too many pears to ignore)

 

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Slad

[Commando]

5 hours ago, Slad said:

Making perry this year for the first time since we moved in.  Great year for top fruit here - trees groaning.

 

Made a scratter out of wood we milled earlier in the year, a fence post and a handful of screws but bought a simple screw press. Life's too short. Going to make something more like the kit in the photo above next year though, which looks great.  Probably going to keep the screw, but use it with an 8T bottle jack instead of adding wood blocks every 5 minutes.  

 

We're keeping the trees' jucice in separate demijohns so we can see what each pear is like and done some with high alcohol yeast and some with normal Youngs.  Too impatient to wait like all the books say so brewing it fast like a beer in the boiler room.  The air locks look like steam trains!

 

A neighbour advised adding back water to the same volume of water taken off and repressing.  Worked well although the ABV will probably be 3.5 - 4%, which will be OK for "session" drinking I guess?

 

Top tip for bottles; we have a discount shop near us which sells stuff near its sell by date.  I bought 2 x 40 bottles of Grolsch (454ml) for £21 each.  This is a bit cheaper than the bottles I was looking at on Amazon plus I get to give the Boy 40 bottles of lager to drink with his mates into the bargain.

 

Any top tips for cider?  I've made lots of wine and beer before but cider is new to me.  We have a couple of apple trees and a crab apple so might give it a go.  (Went for perry first because we have too many pears to ignore)

 

 

My advice is pick up a copy of ‘Craft Cider Making’ by Andrew Lea, he’s the master of small scale production in UK.

When u say ‘normal Young’s’ what yeast is that? Cider and Perry are actually fruit wines so it’s advised to use wine yeasts for fermentation.👍

[Slad]

Hi Commando, it's Youngs normal (wine) yeast - my local shop has sold out of their cider yeast.  I used an EC-1118 sparkling wine yeast on the 4% stuff but it didn't start so I've tipped in more of the Youngs.  I have read the same as what you say in that wine yeast is best.

 

I'll take a look at the Andrew Lea book.  I've got "The new cider maker's handbook" by Jolicoeur and "The History and virtues of cyder" by RK French.  Both a good read in their own way; the former seems to be a bit of a go to "bible" - a book I would like to write.

 

Edited October 21, 2022 by Slad

[Commando]

12 hours ago, Slad said:

Hi Commando, it's Youngs normal (wine) yeast - my local shop has sold out of their cider yeast.  I used an EC-1118 sparkling wine yeast on the 4% stuff but it didn't start so I've tipped in more of the Youngs.  I have read the same as what you say in that wine yeast is best.

 

I'll take a look at the Andrew Lea book.  I've got "The new cider maker's handbook" by Jolicoeur and "The History and virtues of cyder" by RK French.  Both a good read in their own way; the former seems to be a bit of a go to "bible" - a book I would like to write.

 

[email protected]

Is also a very good source of advice on all things cider/perry