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[Review] Prestige Powdered Apple Cider Kit

Started by Damofto, August 26, 2014, 03:57:50 PM

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Damofto

August 26, 2014, 03:57:50 PM Last Edit: August 26, 2014, 04:48:06 PM by LordEoin
I was lucky enough to win the Prestige Powdered Apple Cider kit, so kindly sponsored by Geterbrewed.

The product can be found here:  http://www.geterbrewed.com/powdered-apple-cider-brewing-kit-makes-23-litres.html



Apologies for taking so long to post a review, most of my brewing has been put on hold because of a house purchase, but I managed to stick this on in my dad's house a month ago.

I hadn't brewed a cider kit before so I was really interested to see how it turned out, this is how it went:

The kit itself is very straightforward, it comes with 1 pouch of powdered apple extract and 1 sachet of general purpose Wine Yeast, and a very simple set of instructions.


This kit requires the addition of white sugar, the instructions state that 2kg of white sugar will give an ABV of 6.5% or 1.5kg for 5.5%, I opted for 1.5kg of Dextrose not wanting too high an alcohol content.  I dissolved the dextrose in 3.5 litres of boiling water and added it to the fermenter.
I then added the cider mix, the powder clumped quite a bit but after a couple minutes of stirring and mashing against the side of the bucket I got rid of all the clumps



I then topped up to 23 litres with cold water and stirred vigourously for around 5 minutes.  The powder is not so easy to dissolve, it has a sort of grainy texture like sand and there were plenty of particles floating around but the instructions say that this is normal.



Before pitching the yeast I took a gravity reading, it read 1.032 which was a lot lower than I was expecting .  I wonder if I got the maximum from the powdered extract, maybe a couple of minutes on the stove would have dissolved it better?



I fermented for 2 weeks at 24c in the hot press, there was a lot of the powder left at the bottom of the fermenter after fermentation was complete, I'd say I had about an inch and half total of trub.
The final gravity was 1.000 which gave me an ABV of around 4.2%, I bottled straight from primary and bottled conditioned for 2 weeks.  Adding another 0.5% for bottle conditioning and I have a brew of roughly 4.7% which is perfect for me.

I cracked a couple of these open at the weekend and despite not achieving the expected ABV of 5.5% I'm very happy with it.  It tastes absolutely lovely already after only 2 weeks in the bottle, it has a true Applely taste, is not too sharp and is very easy to drink. 
I forgot to take a pic of the final product but I will post one at the weekend when I'm back at the folks house.  It poured perfectly clear and the yeast has settled well at the bottom of the bottle.
I would recommend anyone to try this.  Thanks again to Geterbrewed for the opportunity.


LordEoin

4 weeks total from pack to glass. Nice one. Cider would normally drive me mad with waiting.

Did you taste the apple powder? i'd say it tastes amazing!
Would you brew it again?

Damofto

No never thought to taste it, but there was an amazing smell of apple when I added it to the boiling water.
Yes I would brew it again for sure it tastes great, i'm sure it will improve over the coming weeks as well.  I might try a different cider kit first just to see how it compares because I'd never really thought to brew one before.

@geterbrewed

Thanks Damofto,

Fantastic review and we always love to see pictures. As we were the first to bring these kits into Ireland we are very pleased that they have been a success and are selling exceptionally well, a few other homebrew shops now have them too so they are here to stay as a top quality cider kit

To help to continue to promote them we are now bundling the 2kg brewing sugar with the Cider Kit for €2.98 and giving away a free 33 litre fermenter away with each kit for a limited time.

http://geterbrewed.ie/powdered-apple-cider-brewing-kit-makes-23-litres-en.html
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