Basement cider
"Surprisingly drinkable!"
Notes pertaining to my ongoing efforts to brew gallon-sized batches of cider using recycled and low-cost materials.
Working recipe
Materials:
- Juice
- Yeast
- Sugar
- 9 glass beer bottles
- Steel bottle caps + capping tool
- Plastic tote (20 qt?)
- Empty 1 gallon jug (e.g. from milk or cider)
- 1" OD flexible plastic tubing
- ~1 qt glass bottle or jar or airlock cap
- "One step" sanitizing powder
- Plastic funnel
- Rubber party baloon
Method:
- Make sure you have everything, especially 9 bottles before starting a batch.
- Mix sanitizing solution in plastic tote using package instructions (1 Tbsp + 1 gallon of warm water using
extra recycled jug).
- Transfer ~1 qt of the solution into a clean 1 gallon plastic jug, and shake vigorously, then dump the
solution back into the tote.
- Transfer juice into the plastic jug.
- Add yeast to the jug.
- Cap with a baloon and store somewhere not too cold for a few days.
- Vent the baloon as needed, and replace with airlock after the messy part of fermentation is over.
- Monitor the bubble rate: when the rate falls below 5 bub / ~120s, it's time to bottle (after 7 to 10 days).
- Prepare more cleaning solution as before.
- Rinse bottles out with warm water, then sanitize, then dry (each step for all 9 bottles in series)
- Secure siphon tube end using a chop stick going ~1 cm past the end.
- Put bottles on the floor on a couple of paper towels, and secure the siphon tube.
- Don't forget to put an empty pint glass on the floor to capture the excess cider.
- Start siphoning process, and use flashlight to monitor fluid level. Stop filling leaving ~1" of head space.
- Put bottles back on the counter, and sanitize caps leaving them on a paper towel to dry
- Add 3/4 tsp of plain white sugar to each bottle.
- Put down a paper towel to cushion bottles while capping.
- Cap the bottles, clean them off, add labels, and clean up.
- Write down notes.
Summary
Batch | Duration | Yeast | End bubble rate | Contents |
Jeb | 9 days | GV yeast | less than 1 bub / 90 s | GV apple juice, Doe creek apple peel, Martinellis cider |
Zeke | 13 days | Nottingham ale yeast | 5 bub / 273 s | GV apple juice, Doe creek apple peel, Martinellis cider |
Abe | 9 days | GV yeast | 5 bub / 115 s | GV apple juice, Doe creek apple peel, Martinellis cider |
Buz | 11 days | Nottingham+Lalvin wine yeast | 5 bub / 147 s | Frozen GV apple juice concentrate |
Cyrus | 8 days | Lalvin wine yeast | 5 bub / 193 s | Frozen Kroger grape juice concentrate |
Daniel | aborted | GV yeast | n.a. | Kroger Apple cider |
Elias | 7 days | Lalvin wine yeast | 5 bub / 148 s | GV apple juice |
Finnian | unfinished | Saf instant | -- | Kroger apple juice |
231010 Jeb: Very funky nose/taste, dry, mild flavor, low acidity.
231016 Zeke: Very boozy and dry, nice apple flavor. Carbonation did not occur at all after bottling.
231107 Abe: Excellent flavor, dry.
231116 Buz: Weird unpleasant bready/grainy flavor after two weeks of bottle conditioning, but this seems to have
disappeared after a few weeks to a month later.
231127 Cyrus: Tastes like a dry cider made with grapes. Very tart, high acidity, clean taste otherwise.
231216 Daniel: Failed experiment: the preservatives in the cider did in fact prevent the yeast from fermenting at a
very high rate, so I dumped it out.
231225 Elias: t.b.d.
Contents