Do any of you cu/ck/s brew your own hard apple cider using store bought juice bottles at home?

Champagne yeast is readily available and packs a good punch, right?

That is the taste of yeast. Two days is way too soon.

Cheers m8. How much sugar would you add to 2L of woolies Apple juice if you wanted a 10% brew that wasn't as dry as a nuns cunt but still on the dryish side?

Bump

I just buy the 100% concentrate cans that you mix with water. Feels good mang.

Op is American, not Australian.

Only burgers call cider "hard cider".

OP here. I'm Australian, I call it hard cider only so the amerifats can understand what I mean.

Is this an ameriblubber thing?

Not who your asking but I brew dry wines with Lavlin EC-1118 Champagne yeast usually starting with a specific gravity of 1.100 and I've never had any residual sugar left. But it takes at least a month and I normally rack to a secondary for another month. Sometimes even rack a third time depending on the style.

Yet the product pictured in OP is clearly not American....

Not who your asking, but I brew wine. That's a tough question without knowing the gravity of the plain juice. You should really get a hydrometer. They're cheap and accurate.

>Lowering yourself to their level

I do have one. The bottled apple juice was 1.040 and the Apple and blackcurrant with 100g of sugar added was 1.063. Those values are adjusted for the temperature of the hydrometer btw

Not sure what the final values will be but I will wait and see

A 1.090 starting gravity fermented with champagne yeast will give you @ 10.5% abv. Since 100g of sugar raised it .023, I would think 200g will raise from 1.040 to 1.086. That should give you around 10% abv. It will be dry, but you can always back sweeten after fermentation by zapping the yeast with Campden tablets and adding your sweetener.

Thanks m80 I am happy to hear that. Bed time here, take it easy. Thanks again f a m

I'm always a fan of cider but it seems to need too much time aging. Delicious once clear my ass. I like to keep ABV around 8 or 9%, anything higher takes even longer.

I have a 5gal batch going where I added 1.5kg LME with 15g American Saaz for 30 minutes. I usually like EC1118 but this time went for Safale 05. I'm hoping it will drink faster and have a little lacing.

For quick drinkability Skeeter Pee has always done the trick. 3.6kg sugar, a bit under 2l lemon juice, water to 5gal on top of whatever wine slurry I have, I add another liter of lemon in secondary and drink once it's clear. I'm american so prices are lower here but I'm assuming it's a relatively cheap wine anywhere. Cider at the cheapest is going to be around $12 if it's on sale, $16-20 if not. The lemon wine is under $6 for 5gal even if not on sale.

I'm still figuring out rice wine but I have a feeling it could be the cheapest of all. I've done a couple batches chinese style but want to try it with just water, rice, lactic acid, amylase, a little nutrient/energizer and yeast to see what comes out. If I can't get rice to convert just by soaking then maybe try cooking in bags in a crockpot like a shitty sous vide.

>rice wine

I've started making sake lately. I use the aspergillus oryzae fungus (pic related) to convert the starches to sugars. Not difficult, just have to innoculate some steamed rice and incubate at 86F for 48 hours. It's been pretty interesting. I bottled 16 litres a few days ago. Later when I crack a bottle I might post a pic if the thread is still up.

This is the last sake I made. Hard to tell because my surfaces are all fairly dark colored, but it's really clear with just a very slight gold hue.

Do Americans make their cider from already processed bottles of apple juice?

I'm from the West Country in the UK which probably has the highest cider production in the world and certainly has the highest consumption. I used to make cider with my dad every year- putting apples from the garden through a cider press and fermenting in casks.

I'm not trying to poke fun at your practice, I've just not heard of it before. The local supermarket has probably 30-40 different varieties of cider so there's never a need for people to make their own

Just read through the whole thread and realised you're Australian! But apparently this is a thing in America too

It's not a common thing in America. It's something that's done by college kids or hobbyist types desperate to get drunk as cheap as possible. But even among those groups it's rare.

Alcoholic cider just isn't a thing over here. Though recently some more brands have been popping up as part of the craft beer explosion. But even with that in mind that cider in general is a very niche thing in the US. Homemade cider is extra niche.

Hasn't gone wrong for me in any of the three i've done (hard cider, pineapple mead, mango mead)

If you're not concerned with extra sweetness at the end it's not a problem

Nanny state high taxes in Australia have pushed me into making my own for a cheap drop.

24x 330ml bottles here is at least $60 and I can drink 3/4 of the box on a good night

Lucky I don't smoke any more because a 25 pack of Marlborough's is about $26-27 now

This is about the only downside of universal healthcare I can think of. The government doesn't want you to get sick.

>cider just isn't a thing over here.

You're out of touch, then. Where do you live, bumfuck backwater? Cider is exploding all over the US. Very few serious homebrewers don't occasionally work ciders into their rotation.

Having said that, a serious homebrewer is going to press fresh apples for cider or pears for perry, even in 'murrica.

this is nonsense

this is most likely wrong. I'm going to assume they sent you a yeast designed for cider, wine, or beer, which should have no problem fermenting out the small amount of sugar you added.

champagne yeast can handle 15% easily. most wine yeasts can do the same. beer yeasts are more readily available for me so I use them, and they handle 10-12% abv no problem.

press your own apples for a significantly better final product. its fun to experiment with different varieties.

Non-alcoholic cider is very distinct from apple juice, though. Do you guys just have one kind of non-alcoholic apple drink, or do you append modifiers to "apple juice" to distinguish?

It's not common but we have a few that make good cider. Those of us lucky enough to live near an orchard with something more interesting than your typical supermarket varietals can call ahead and request they reserve 10 or 20 gallons for them before it goes into pasteurization. We do have a little history of cider making and a few orchards still grow cider apples but prohibition really fucked us good. I always assumed applejack was an American thing but never checked. Do you guys freeze distill cider? It's illegal here but it's a family tradition for some.

Apple juice sold at "the store" is nasty.

The fresh pressed local non-alcoholic cider at the farmer's market isn't appreciably cheaper than a good cider in a bottle.

Making cider from that nasty shit like in the picture is like making wine from Welch's grape juice. It's a cheap way to get drunk but if you don't live in prison, just why.

It's probably a flyover, it's common for their kind to haze and ostracize any "hipster" who dares try things other than "muh IPA" and brown colored liquor

Here in the glorious northeast cider is widely available and of excellent quality and nobody wakes up to a burning cross on their lawn for drinking things that flyovers get triggered by

You just have to play with it some. Add tannins, adjust pH, oak, you can make welch's as good as bottom shelf wine without much trouble. If it's cheap drunk then 18% kilju is the better option.

Try the apple juice from whole foods, $9/gal but you get to keep a pretty glass jug. They sell those jugs for $5 each at the homebrew store so I tell myself the juice is $4/gallon just like in walmart. It smells amazing when pouring into the fermenter.

Why is farmstand cider 7-9 dollars a gallon anyway? Is it that difficult/costly to make it?

Concerned with extra sweetness? The yeast will eat the sugar and convert it into alcohol, there should be no extra sweetness left.

I think you mean don't buy any cider that has preservatives in it (example potassium sorbate)

Wine/Champagne yeast will handle higher abv, ask your local brew shop.

You can google weight of sugar to increase initial gravity. Depends on what kind of sugar you are using.

You need at least a week, I go for 2. You also need to bottle condition for a couple of weeks before the final flavor will come out.

I used this yeast in my last cider for a 12% abv

>If it's cheap drunk then 18% kilju is the better option.
jesus christ no 8% ginger beer kilju gives the worst hangovers

fuck me never EVER AGAIN

>cider brewing traditions in 'murrica were not and aren't widespread.

You know damn well cider was commonly brewed in upstate NY as soon as it was colonized and I'm certain a number of locals still brew their own. Even walmart is carrying some of the shit national brands. Cider is undergoing a big revival.

any yeast will thrive under 10% abv

>as good as bottom shelf wine
Yeah like I said, if you're in prison or something, it's not a bad idea. Likewise if you just want to try it so you can say you can do it.

I've had enough homebrew wine and beer "experiments" ranging from first-try barely drinkable crap to "actually not too bad". The "actually not too bad" came from a middle aged guy who was independently wealthy, didn't work for a living, and literally spent all his time in his man cave the size of a normal person's house, fucking around with his unlimited supply of equipment and recipes.

I have a full time job and lack the real estate for that level of DIY. I also don't drink nearly enough to make it worth while even if I did make it turn out ok. I'd rather just walk down to the local bottle shop and pick up a cotes du rhone or an unclassified piedmont nebbiolo for $14 which would be far better than anything I could ever hope to make on my own. Or in the case of cider, a pretty respectable basque cider for $6, or a damm good new england cider for $17.

>I think you mean don't buy any cider that has preservatives in it (example potassium sorbate)

the stuff here in quebec has nothing in it and goes bad after a month its pretty hard to find after fall
#2 grower for apples in the world its just a lot of north american cider was 10%+

Hey, fellow Ausfag here.

I'm a bit of a homebrewer, so I'll give you some advice about yeast and sugars. Often, using fructose (regular sugar) will lead to a really bitter aftertaste. In addition, if you add too much sugar, the yeast will die off because it doesn't understand restraint. It's better to add some glucose to it instead, which will add very few off flavours in comparison.

I believe that's what is talking about.

It should be sweet enough to counteract the bitterness though, if my experience with those tops is accurate.

In addition, I don't know about woolies brand, but some brands of apple juice have artificial sweeteners and other chemicals that will produce off flavours. It's better to use the 100% apple juice (or whatever juice you want) to make a better brew.

They don't necessarily consume a specific amount before it stops. It's more that the yeast works well in a specific range of sugar to water.

But that's something I'll hold back on unless someone actually asks about it.

Depending on the price of sugar, you can make some serious moonshine for fairly cheap. The most expensive part is making it not taste like arse by distilling it, but if you don't care for that, then use sugar.

Fun fact, distilled rice wine is called Shochu.

Another fun fact, if you have a carbon filter, it'll take out that colour (though it is lovely) and quite a few "bad" flavours (the main reason for doing it).

It'll no longer look yellow, it will instead look more like clear store-bought sake, and will taste more like it too.

"Hard", as in alcoholic. I imagine non-alcoholic cider is "soft" cider. Hard liquor and soft drinks come to mind, as they probably have the same naming convention.

Not to be too pedantic but shochu is made from a lot of stuff. Carrots, yams, rice, etc.

It's a hobby for some. I think it's fun turning something shit into not bad. It's not terribly expensive either. I started out with 5 gallon buckets from craigslist for $1 each that originally had icecream in them. You can get around some of the experimenting from reading others' notes. What OP is making needs 6 months or so to mellow out but it makes a pleasant dry and slightly sour wine. Just because something is cheap doesn't mean it's bad. Picking the right yeast and ferment temperatures will give a nice product.

You don't have to settle for welch's or wine from the merchant either. You can buy apple or grape juice of nearly any kind you want. They even make some retard proof. You can get wine kits for $60-150. I've never had one turn out bad and they take all the guesswork out of it for you, you just add yeast and water.

I've been wanting to try my hand at shining. I have a few mash recipes saved on my computer. I'd really like to make an eaux de vie but if I had a still I wouldn't be able to resist making a good old fashioned hillbilly whiskey for long. Using charred oak chips and moving between the freezer and outside might even help me cheat the aging process a little.

And back at you, there are many types of Shochu. One of which is made of distilled Sake.

Squares and rectangles, you see.

>Using charred oak chips and moving between the freezer and outside might even help me cheat the aging process a little.
I have a bit of oak soaking and when I make a bottle of whiskey, I toss in a shot of the oak alcohol and it's instantly aged by about 5~ years.

>look more like clear store-bought sake

Hmm, I understand distilling would clarify it completely, but I was under the impression traditional sake was simply fermented shortgrain rice with starch converted to sugar from the fungus, aspergillus oryzae. Perhaps I'm wrong, but I don't notice any off flavors either. I'd like to get it crystal clear, but I'm working on ideas that don't involve distilling. Afterall, I live in a county that was dry until a couple years ago and you could have been busted for a 6 pack of beer.

Not distilling, filtering. If you can find it, Bentonite will clear your drink too, but you need to rack off the clear drink from the cloudy part that will sink to the bottom.

Filtration, for what it's worth, is what I use. I haven't used Bentonite before, so I can't give you any info about that, but I know filtering with a carbon filter will work. Speak to your local homebrew shop or go online. It's quite simple and depending on the amount of carbon and which setup you use, you can get up to 20 litres or more filtered before needing replacements.

Thx. Bentonite. I'll look into it. The slight gold tint hasn'really bothered me, but I would kind of like it to be completely clear, like water, for guests.

This might be a really dumb question but if I made a home brew in a juice bottle like OP, is there any benefit whatsoever in running it through say a brita water filter? Will it filter out any of the shit or is it a waste of time?

I couldn't tell you about that water filter, but I know the wine is supposed to be racked off, not filtered.

It's better to drain your clearer drink from the sediment at the bottom of the bottle. Then drink.

I'm 2 weeks into my first batch.

I put yeast in x3 gallon jugs in 5g, 10g, 20g amounts and left the lid just loose enough to let some air in.

I have a refractometer, but I've been too lazy to measure them.

Other than one of the jugs leaking a little bit there's not much to say about it yet.

This is shit-tier kiddie booze, they should filter and applejack it.

Also I'm using pic related in the original jugs, and I'm a little worried because I put my mouth on the lid to drink some of the juice.

Clean and sterilise everything and it should be fine.

Never done that before, How's it done?

The idea is that the alcohol doesn't freeze, so you collect that and discard the ice.

In reality, it's pretty much sticking it in the freezer, dumping it into a fine mesh strainer, and using a fork to break the ice chunks over a pot and collect the liquid. Repeat until laziness sets in.

Wouldn't you lose a lot of flavour by doing this? It'd be better to rack the clear fruit wine into a separate sterilised bottle and toss the sediment.

This is a really good thread, thanks bros.
Makes me want to start making alcohol

>Wouldn't you lose a lot of flavour by
lolno other way around

Why filter? If you're going to freeze it anyway you might as well cold crash it . If it's for cleanliness then people are more likely to get their hands on kmeta or sorbate before they can afford a filtration setup.

Worst case scenario you lost $5. I'm autistic about cleanliness but seeing how some of my friends do it apparently sanitizing isn't nearly as important. People used to chew the grains before spitting them in a bucket. Still, it's probably better to pour out of the bottle into cup if you're trying to make room to add shit in there next time.

I imagine the hangover must be rough but I'd like to get applejuice and bump the SG up to 1.1ish with apple juice concentrate then freeze distill it up to about 20% ABV.

Go big or go home.

Made some good apple brandy in a culligan jug from concentrate, applesauce, and cinnamon. About a month or two later with a little stove distallation, got about two liters of booze.

No. Farmers are just greedy jews

Yes, I do. And I've done several batches. Right now I have some apple and blueberry cider going, and I'm planning to make a ~12% mango and apple wine.

If you want to more accurately measure your alcohol content, get a hydrometer. It's too late now, since you should take your measurements before and after fermentation. However, I'd guess you'll probably get at least 5% alcohol from that batch, depending how sweet it was before you added the sugar.

The type of yeast can change the result as well. For a higher alcohol content, get some decent champagne yeast. For something lower, I recommend getting a good ale yeast (I like Safale-04). I'm sure you could also do with a cider yeast, but I've heard they have a terrible smell while brewing.

If you want to fizzy cider, wait until it's completely finished fermenting, then add some sugar (be sure to look up how much sugar to use for your amount of cider, or else you'll end up with a little bomb) and put it into a bottle designed to hold pressure. I recommend a Grolsch/swing-top bottle like the pic since you don't need to buy bottle caps or a capper, and they're perfectly reusable. Then let it sit at room temperature for at least two weeks for the residual yeast to eat up the sugar and carbonate your cider.

I've recently switched my cheap ferments to those 500mL PET bottles you can sometimes get under $2 a six pack. Coke and Pepsi does it. It doesn't look fancy or have the fun ritual of popping the top but you can put stupid levels of pressure in them so no fear if you accidentally leave on in the car during summer. I figured it worked so well using the 20oz bottles to bottle the last little bit from bottling why not try smaller ones? They even have 12 oz bottles.

It won't age as well but I can't afford to have a shitload of glass like I want and at least this way I don't feel bad if gifts never make their way back to me. People are a little more sketched out because it's not a virgin but you can get a similar cherry popping experience with a strip of paper like grolsch uses or some string and a wax stamp.

I may not need to worry about beer bottles for a while though. I lucked across a man who switched to kegging and gave me 9.5 cases for free, a mixture of long neck and heritage. I had to clean them but it's a piece of cake with PBW. Craigslist is a magical place.

Me and some friends decided to start making mead a month or so ago, our first batch was a combination of pineapple, cocount, blue agave amber, and some ginger.
Turned out horrible, but then again that was when we tried it before racking the mead, does anybody know if the taste changes or if it'll stay the same once it clears up.

Just use fruits and flavors that go well with honey.
Apple, Banana carrot(seriously try it out, suprisingly nice)

OP here. I do have a hydrometer, one of my batches with a little added sugar was 1.049 and the one I added 200g of sugar to was 1.072 at the beginning. Both are on day 4 so they need a bit longer before I stick them in the fridge to relax.

I'm using high grade wine yeast which can go as high as about 15% under the right conditions.

Mead is shit and tastes like ass, or it does until you've had a couple forevers to age it out. Put it aside for a year or two and in the meantime make some Dragon's Blood, Skeeter Pee, or Edwort's Apfelwein if you want something that you don't have to fret over and drink's young.

Do you think it would be possible to make your own kind of homebrew bloody mary by using tomato juice rather than apple or would it taste too weird? Or would it just not work because tomato juice doesn't have the right kind of natural sugar in it or something?

i don't think there's enough sugar.

tomatoes are really low carb. that's why people eat tons of them on keto diets.

>drinking apfelwein young
no m8
aging making a significant improvement

>yeast eat sugar, make alcohol
>they die if they're living in too high abv

Good. That's why I'm using high quality wine yeast. Once the yeast has eaten all the sugar it can die for all I care, it's job is complete

>well for starters only use unpasteurized cider
Yeast don't care if it's pasteurized or not. If anything, pasteurizing will reduce competition for the yeast and result in a better product.

Cider is for women and gay men.

Well mark me down for a good old prostate punching because I love cider.