Simple Turbo Cider

v1.0 and a quick simple way to start homebrewing

What is Turbo Cider?

Avoiding the most labour-intensive step of cider production — the gathering, crushing and juicing of apples — turbo cider is simply a homebrew cider that uses apple juice purchased from your local supermarket as the main ingredient.

The base ingredient for turbo cider is supermarket apple juice (any brand will do)

The turbo element relates to both ease of preparation, and speed of production which for a simple apple cider can be just a few weeks.

Ingredients (Simple Version)

1. Apple Juice (4–5 Litres)
2. Yeast (2.5g Any will do, but cider yeast or champagne yeast are best)
3. A Cup of Tea

The turbo cider recipe covered today is a simple starting point. One of the great joys of turbo cider is the variations that are possible to increase sweetness, flavour, alcohol content, viscosity, clarity and taste. There are an endless number of avenues to follow once you understand the basics.

Note about your chosen Apple Juice

The quality of the apple juice will affect the quality of your cider. Having tried a few varieties, they can be surprisingly different.

Whether the apple juice is from concentrate or pure doesn’t particularly matter, but if it contains any sulphides or sulphates, these are preservatives that will prevent fermentation from starting.

In truth, haven’t found any apple juice that contains a preservative, so this may be a bit of an urban myth, but I best mention it just in case!

One last point is the starting specific gravity, which in turn will give you an indication of your basic final ABV. A common addition to the ingredients is sugar to bump this up a little. I’ll cover this in more detail another time.

Selecting the yeast

Yeast is a funny old thing. So long as you have some, that’s all that matters! Some online turbo cider makers successfully use bread yeast in their brew, all is good with the world.

Google ‘cider yeast’ and you’ll be fine! This is how I selected my first no-brand, no-frills cider yeast and it worked fine. When we come back to developing variations of turbo cider, yeast is one of the factors that you can look at more closely to adjust the flavours.

About the Tea

That last ingredient, a cup of tea, sometimes creates a second look, and no it’s not for you to sit down with a biscuit after all the other ingredients have been mixed together either.

A strong cup of black tea is an actual ingredient that helps to replace the tannin absent from fruit juice but would be found in fresh apples if you were to juice them yourself.

Without tannin, the turbo cider can taste thin and watery; lacking in taste complexity. Tannins themselves are a little bitter so too much tannin is also bad, but their addition improves the body of the final result. In the right quantity, the effect is a dry, astringent mouthfeel that provides a positive complexity to the end result.

Furthermore, tannins also have preservative qualities, enabling your cider to stay fresh longer.

Equipment

Before getting started, there are a few items you will need

1. Sanitiser
2. A 5L Fermentation Vessel
3. An Airlock
4. A Funnel

Sanitisation: While cleaning will remove any visible dirt from your equipment, sanitiser takes it one step further working on a microbial level to eliminate any bacteria that could spoil your end result.

Fermentation Vessel: The fermentation vessel of choice for my turbo cider is an empty 5L water bottle. It’s not only cheap and convenient, but it also saves on washing up when the whole thing is over too. A glass demijohn is the traditional fermentation vessel, and I confess it does look good when your brew is fermenting in one of those. The plastic food-grade fermentation buckets are another option that achieves the same end result.

Airlock: Airlocks allow CO2 from the fermentation to escape while preventing bacteria and other nasty surprises from getting into your wonderful cider. Insects like the smell of fruit, the airlock will keep them at bay. There are crazy DIY versions, but for a few quid, nothing beats listening to the bubbles once fermentation gets started!

Recipe

1. Sanitise all the equipment you are planning to use
2. If your chosen yeast requires activation, follow the instructions to add the yeast to warm water
3. Make a cup of strong tea and let it steep for 10–15 minutes
4. Add 3L of Apple Juice to the fermenter
5. Add Tea
6. Add Juice up to the ‘shoulder’ of your fermenter
7. Shake vigorously
8. Add the yeast
9. Rock gently to ensure all the yeast is in the apple juice
10. Add airlock and move to a dark place for approx 2 weeks

This will produce a dry cider within 10–14 days.

A Hydrometer Interlude

A hydrometer is a device to measure the specific gravity (SG) of a liquid. The baseline is water, which has an SG of 1.000. Your fruit juice — because it contains lots of sugars — will have a higher number, eg 1.040. After fermentation completes any the sugars turn to alcohol the SG will fall down to a lower number.

Measuring the SG before fermentation (called Original Gravity, OG) and after fermentation (called Final Gravity, FG) will allow you to calculate the Alcohol By Volume percentage.

UK Fruit Juice does seem lower than other countries, it could be the level of dilution from concentrate

A hydrometer is not required equipment, but without it, it will not be possible to calculate the level of alcohol.

What Next?

Once fermentation has completed, your dry cider is ready for bottling and drinking. There are many simple options (and a few complicated ones too) for what you do next with your cider. I will explain these in my next update.

There are unlimited options for what you do next to flavour your cider

The Video Playlist of My First Turbo Cider

Cheers Everyone
Rob