5 litres of cheap 100% (unsweetened) apple juice, or equivalent. Last autumn we scrumped apples and bought a cheapish juicer (around £20) to juice them which was much more satisfying than buying the juice!
1 cup of sugar, any type. I use a mug to measure (half a bag)
1 heaped tsp brewing yeast
1 gallon demijohn with airlock
1. Pour 3 litres of the apple juice into a demijohn, make sure you dont
add it all straight away as it froths quite a bit at the start of brewing,
due to the action of the yeast.
2. Add a heaped teaspoon of yeast into the demijohn, super yeast or turbo
yeast is better, as it makes the alcohol content higher. Normal brewers
yeast is fine as well.
Give it a good stir or shake around so the ingredients get mixed
together.
Place it somewhere warm and after several hours it should start to bubble
or froth up.
3. Bung in the airlock and place it in a warm place. It should start to
get quite active and start to bubble away, sometimes even frothing. When
this stage has calmed down, normally after a couple of days, add the rest
of the apple juice until the demijohn is nearly full.
4. Now just leave it until it stops bubbling, which means fermentation has
stopped.
5. Let it clear for a day or so, then it can be put into other bottles
(racked off) or poured straight into a mug and drank :-)
The turnaround for this brew can be a week, or a bit longer, depending on
how much sugar content there is in the apple juice. Some people add a
couple of teaspoons of honey to each demijohn at the start of bre
cinnamon sticks, or cloves. Last time we added 15 whole cloves and 2 cinnamon sticks, broken in half which worked very well.
Other recipes advise to gently warm a cup of applejuice, then add the
teaspoon of yeast to that, just to get the yeast started, then after an
hour or so tip the whole cupfull of mixture into the demijohn.
Just remember that if you use the turbo yeast, it will make a very strong
brew!!!!!!! Some of ours has come out at 18%! If it is too strong, just dilute it with lemonade :-)
Enjoy xxx
4 comments:
I am loving you blog cant wait to see what else you get up to. I dont drink much so I think this Cider woudl knock me out lol
Ha-ha-ha!! Now why am I not surprised at you using "turbo yeast"?
I'm thinking of changing Bernie from cans of EXPENSIVE chemicals to something more natural. Although, on saying that, I reckon "normal brewers yeast" would be more than enough ;)lol xx
I've now got some cider on the go. I erred on the side of caution though as I didn't fancy making an eighteen percenter lol
I used cider yeast and 200g sugar. Seeing as mine was made from cartons I cut up half a bramley and added that.
I didn't think it had started fermenting, especially as yours gets so erm violent lol Its gently bubbling away now :-)
:~) Even ours starts off slowly sometimes ... so worth it though! A's currently starting off roughly 2 demijohns each week *shock!* See how it goes and adjust it from there. It definitely works out cheaper I think ... do you have a vinometer? They're really cheap on ebay (or wherever) and you just pour a tiny bit of cider, etc. into the end, tip it up and it tells you the alcohol content ... maybe you could dilute it in the demijohn if it was stronger than you hoped for??? Just thinking of Bernie on his weak'n'mild ;~)
Hope to meet up with you two soon x
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