Suggestions on Cider Making

[Aksarben]

I will make suggestions, and I have NO idea what you have available there, and bear with me as I might talk in USA gallons, but may also reference ppm and grams.

At the winery where I work we make cider.  So my suggestions is what we do and have had pretty good success in the past years.

Juice arrives, and I test it for Brix/ Acid/ pH. (we don't adjust Brix unless it is below 11 Brix)  Most times it is somewhat deficient in acid, sometimes horribly so.  This shifts the pH upwards above 3.70, which we find unacceptable.  Example:  we will get in juice that is 12.75 Brix, with TA  (acid) of 0.325 as Malic and pH of around 3.80.  We calculate the gallons and add quite a bit of Malic acid to the juice to drive the acid up and pH down.  For us, we like the acid to be around 0.650 and so we add 0.650 - 0.325 or  a Malic addition of + 0.35 to the juice.  (rounded )  This drives the pH down and the acid up, and since it's Malic, it pretty much stays this way.  It improves color, taste, keeping quality and we can use less SO2 for control of oxidation and undesirables.  The pH most  times drops down to around 3.30 +/-  and that is fine.

After the acid is adjusted, we add Superfood (a yeast Nutrient) at 3.5 lbs / 1000 gallons and D.A.P. (Di-ammonium phosphate) at 1.5 lbs/ M.  along with Scott KS Enzyme at 80 ppm.    Even juice we receive for a client, that comes to us filtered bright, we add the Malic, yeast nutrients, enzyme along with SO2 at the rate of 40ppm.  Don't worry.  40ppm will soon be dissipated during fermentation.

When the temp reaches above 52deg F, we add DV-10 yeast (hydrated) at 1 lb per thousand gallons.

Leave it and watch for end of fermentation, which is usually in around 4-6 days after fermentation starts.  Top of cider will show very few bubbles and we check for dryness with a Bayer clinitest (sugar test) pill.  If it's at 0.5% or less, then it is centrifuged off the lees, the lees are filtered and added to the main batch, along with 30ppm of SO2.

About 1 week later, it is racked and cross flow filtered, which leaves it pretty clean, like BRIGHT clean, and then if we want to bottle some, we add in, to a portion to bottle, a small percentage of apple juice concentrate, some sugar, adjust SO2 to Molecular 9ppm, K-Sorbate and filter though tight membrane filters to brite tanks where it is carbonated for 2 days. When we bottle we use Verlcorin aka DMDC, which completely dissipates in 48 hours but kills anything in the stream to the brite tank.    If it's for a client, then it is generally just cross flow filtered, I check pH and free SO2 and we adjust to Molecular 0.9 ppm with SO2 and then it is pumped to the client's receiving totes or tanker truck.

It has become rather routine and simple and basically that is all it is.  Simple.  We DO NOT encourage any ML activity as we spend good money adding malic into the apple juice to get the desired "crispness" that we are looking for, and do not want a malo lactic fermentation taking it out.

Last year we did about 375,000 gallons of fermented hard cider, or in liters, 1,419,529. 

Normally we receive a tanker load of apple juice that is around 5600 gallons and ferment it all in one tank.  It arrives quite cold to the winery, winter or summer.

Home someone might find this useful.