🍾 Incredible Ciders — and how to brew them

Arthur Geel
Aug 28, 2017 · Unlisted

Preface

This is a very rudimentary instruction on how to brew your very first batch of cider.

Necessary Equipment

  • Food grade fermenter or bucket with an airtight lid
  • Airlock
  • Syphon tube
  • Bottles or a pressure barrel with S30 valve

A fermenter or bucket with lots of headspace is best, 27L or more. The airlock is used to let the CO2 out but no air in. The syphon tube is used for transferring your ciders to bottles (or a keg), an extendable (telescopic) model is best.

Only use bottles designed to handle the pressure (swing top bottles, crown cap bottles or PET bottles). Kegs come in many types, the best have a float system inside so you can draw the cider sooner. The economy models have a bottom tap and no float system so you must wait for full clearing before starting to draw the cider.

Optional Equipment

  • Hydrometer (for checking the fermentation progress)
  • Thermometer
  • Heat tray or brew belt (if your room is too cold)
  • Home brew paddle (for stirring)

All these items can be found in a good homebrew shop.

Setting that ish up

  1. Clean all equipment with Chempro or other good homebrew cleaner/steriliser.
  2. Empty the contents of the juice bag into your sterilised container. Rinse out any remaining concentrate from the bag with hot water and add to the fermenter as well.
  3. Top up to 23 litres in your fermenter using a mix of hot and cold water to achieve a temperature between 20–30°C. Be careful not to add too hot water, especially with glass fermenters. Mix well.
  4. Add cider yeast/sweetener and mix well. Seal fermenter with an airlock, half filled with water. Leave to ferment in constant temperature between 20–28°C. Fermentation will normally take 7–8 days, longer if low room temperature.

Ferment that ish (1/2)

  1. After 7–10 days of fermentation, check that fermentation is over. This is best done with a hydrometer which should show a value of 1000 or below at this stage. If fermentation is not over yet, leave another day or two, then re-check.
    If you don’t have a hydrometer, leave for 10 days or until no more bubbles in airlock.
  2. For best results, rack off the cider into another vessel (using a syphon tube), leaving only the thick sediment behind. You can skip this instruction but you will get more sediment in your bottles. Don’t use finings here unless you plan to do a still cider.
  3. Syphon the cider into clean sterilised bottles. Use bottles with “swing tops”, beer bottles with crown caps or PET bottles with screw caps. An S30 bottling stick is the perfect tool for bottling, it fits straight into the Better Brew syphon tube.
  4. Add 1 level teaspoon of sugar or 1 carbonation drop per 500ml bottle or 1 rounded teaspoon / 2 drops to a 750ml bottle. Be careful not too add too much or your bottles could explode.

Ferment that ish (2/2: Electric boogaloo)

  1. Store the cider for 5 days at between 20–30°C to allow the secondary fermentation (i.e. making the CO2) to take place. Then move to a cool place for clearing.
  2. Leave bottles in a cool place until cider is clear which can take at least another week.

Bottling: don’t bottle this part

  1. Text still being written — stay tuned.

That’s it, enjoy your cider!

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