Maiden turbo cider experiment

[Drzava]

Popped my 'home brew cherry' nearly two weeks ago now with a batch of turbo cider, based on Khannie from Boards' recipe!

21st Feb: 3 litres of Lidl cloudy apple juice plus 1 litre of red grape juice, to be topped up with another litre or so of apple juice in the next couple of days. It's a bit....red (well, duh!)....which I hadn't considered - might use white grape juice (if I can get it) next time to try to keep the apple colour in the drink. OG was about 1.053 so should end up pushing 7% alcohol by the time it's finished. The bottle is placed in a cupboard at 17 - 19 degrees; apparently a bit lower is better for cider, but there's not much I can do about that. Pitched half a sachet of rehydrated yeast at half eleven Saturday night; nine hours later a rather attractive pattern of yeast / crud / whatever (somehow related to the shape of the base of the bottle I presume) had formed on top:


This disappeared over the next 8 hours or so and it doesn't look like there's much happening now, but I can hear plenty of fizzing so I'm presuming that's fermentation storming away. Guess my worries of an explosive krausen were for nowt! Will add the rest of the apple juice when things go a bit quieter.

Update 25/2: I litre of cloudy apple juice added by pouring gently down the side of the bottle while fermentation was still active.

Update 1/3: Bubbling has now stopped and SG was 1.000, so I guess it's pretty much finished up. I'll take another reading in the next couple of days to make sure. Tasted the hydrometer sample - for QA purposes, naturally - and, while it's obviously still a bit rough, it does taste like, well, cider! The apple taste is a small bit 'watery' though. Has anyone tried adding apple extracts or oil to their finished cider to give it a stronger apple taste?

Update 3/3: SG has dropped slightly further to 0.998, giving 7.2% alcohol. Fizz is gone and alcohol kick has lessened, but taste is still quite watery and obviously bitter - however, a small dash of sugar and it's actually drinkable.


Will aim to bottle this over the weekend, presuming that SG doesn't drop any more. It's a kinda 'experimental' batch so will try a few combinations of sweeteners etc. Aiming to prime with 50ml of apple juice per 500ml bottle. Will try some Lidl Cologran sweetener tabs in some bottles. Have ordered Xylitol from Amazon, along with a couple of different highly concentrated apple flavourings to see if I can boost the apple taste - or maybe it just needs time?

[Will_D]

Never seen white grape juice in Lidl

Aldi often have white for sameish price!

[Drzava]

5/3 SG still 0.998, so will aim to bottle, or perhaps rack to secondary (to await my xylitol) this weekend. There's a small bit of foamy 'gunk' floating on top that wasn't there earlier in the week - I hope I'm not in trouble! (drank the sample anyway though!).

[LiamTutty]

If it tastes grand...it is grand! That's my approach any!

I nearly always have a turbo cider on the go...current ones are apple (just apple with 775 yeast) and Vimto!

It's great craic and easy to try lots of different flavours and twists too. I have a rake of bottles of Sherbet Cider sitting in the brew room waiting to come good.

[Greg2013]

Both Lidl and Aldi have stopped selling white grape juice now for quite a while,i too have been looking for some and Tesco seem to be the only ones doing it now at around €1 a litre.

Nvm just looked and Tesco online are out of any grape juice also 

[Drzava]

Bottled this Saturday, after syphoning to a fresh demijohn with 500ml cloudy apple juice. Got just shy of 10 500ml bottles (sparkling water plastic bottles).

Did 2 with no additions.
4 with 2 Cologran tablets.
4 with 1 tsp (ish - bit of a mess!) Xylitol.

Intend to leave them at least a month before sampling.

Also fired on two more brews:

Batch 2:
~4.2L cloudy apple juice added straight to lees from first batch, plus 1/2 tsp nutrient.
OG 1.050.
Doing this batch as the first is VERY cloudy. Noticed when topping up first batch with juice after the first week that the apple juice cartons have a lot of sediment at the bottom if let sit (I had shaken the first four up before pouring). So this time I let the last 50ml or so in the carton after letting them sit overnight. Obviously the juice is still cloudy, but nearly as much as first time.


Batch 3:
3.5L clear Lidl 'from concentrate' apple plus 1L red grape juice NFC, and 1/2 tsp nutrient.
OG 1.050.
Using plain juice from concentrate seems to result in a mediocre cider - maybe a good dash of grape juice will fill it out? We'll see!


Forgot to add tea to both batches - doh!

Heh heh - the wife just came in complaining of the rotten egg smell from my new brew cupboard in the kitchen - guess that's the cider!

Also did a stout kit - will cover that in the kit forum.

[Greg2013]

What yeast did you use in the original cider ? I found that Lavin EC1118 gives excellent results but will drop quite low resulting in a dry cider,Nottingham yeast gives nice result too and leaves a little original apple sweetness but may require some back sweetening,US-05 and  S-04 work quite well also. The cloudy apple juice from Lidl is probably the better juice to use however the "from concentrate" stuff is fine  also,it may give like you say a mediocre cider but it is passable and you can always add some fruit or something in secondary to add some flavour,if you want to add more body use a touch of malto-dextrin before pitching your yeast. Have a look at the link below form a buddy of mine in the UK on an experiment he did last year doing turbo ciders with different yeasts.

If turbo coder is something you want to go further with and experiment i have a link to a very good page i am  a member of on FB based out of UK and that is probably the best source of info i have found so far,i won't post it here as i am not sure if that is allowed,i am not up on the rules regarding that.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTTCGKOvST0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kwZ5Y3z5Dfg

Those videos should get you started but there are plenty of guys from UK on there that are big into this if you want more info pm me.

[Drzava]

Cheers for the videos. I used Godzawa cider yeast, which I presume is something else relabelled? The various batches I'm doing are just trials really to sort a 'good' formula for a full sized batch. Realistically, taking aging of the trial runs into account, the full batch is likely to end up being prepared for summer 2016. Will probably do a cider kit for this summer.

[Drzava]

Hmm.....some of the caps on the bottled cider are bulging a bit. Hopefully that's normal and not bottle bomb territory! Gonna stick them up to the attic - guess they're as carbonated as they need to be already!

[Greg2013]

Hmm.....some of the caps on the bottled cider are bulging a bit. Hopefully that's normal and not bottle bomb territory! Gonna stick them up to the attic - guess they're as carbonated as they need to be already!

If you think they will blow sanitize the beejaysus out of them and ever so slightly release some pressure,but only a little mind you.

[Drzava]

Was intending to just leave them, but might be no harm to leave off some pressure.

[Drzava]

Had intended to hold off much longer, but decided to do a first taste test last night! About 10 days in bottle. I have a few different combinations of sweetener etc, but tried one which was bottled with no additions, except 50ml apple juice. I had opened this bottle slightly a couple of days earlier to let off some pressure.

Colour, clarity: like red grapefruit juice. Naturally cloudy, not from yeast. Looks great.
Carbonation: perfect, good level of fizz.
Taste: OK, bit bitter and watery flavour, but good mouthfeel.

I then split it into two glasses and tried some additions.

First glass (~250ml):
Plus 2 Cologran tabs per glass (i.e. 4 per bottle equivalent): but too sweet.
Plus one drop sour apple flavouring oil: stronger apple taste, but a bit artificial.

Second glass:
Plus two heaped teaspoons xylitol dissolved in 30ml water: sourness gone, not too sweet. Good! Still not too appley.
Add tiny drop green apple flavour oil (different to above): much improved apple flavour - much more natural and 'fresh' than the other flavouring.

Both: 7.3%ish, but no alcohol taste at all - could be dangerous.

Overall, even at this early stage, I'm delighted!

[Will_D]

Plus one drop sour apple flavouring oil: stronger apple taste, but a bit artificial.

Add tiny drop green apple flavour oil (different to above): much improved apple flavour - much more natural and 'fresh' than the other flavouring.

Very interesting experiment. Where are you getting these flavouring oils from?

[Drzava]

Plus one drop sour apple flavouring oil: stronger apple taste, but a bit artificial.

Add tiny drop green apple flavour oil (different to above): much improved apple flavour - much more natural and 'fresh' than the other flavouring.

Very interesting experiment. Where are you getting these flavouring oils from?

Amazon - this is the better one I used:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00NO7C4P0/

I strongly suggest not trying it neat! 

I got the small size just to check - they do a larger size too at 30ml for £10. Obviously very hard to tell but I'd guesstimate about 1 - 2ml per 5L would be a good dilution. The small bottle has no dropper so I dipped a cocktail stick into the oil, and then into the cider, a few times. The same company do lots of other flavours too.

[Drzava]

'Tested' another bottle last night - one with 2 Cologran tablets added at bottling (to 500ml). Great fizz and look again. As is, it's a respectable dry cider. I then added 2 heaped tablespoons xylitol (dissolved in a little water) and a couple of drops green apple flavouring. Mmmm.....this is tasty stuff alright! The green apple flavouring really makes it - I probably added too much (aimed for 1 drop, but added 2-3) so it was a strong flavour, but it's fresh apple bite really worked well against the sweet background.

I have 2 5L batches of turbo cider to bottle - definitely going to add xylitol (~20g per bottle) and green apple flavouring (start at 0.5ml per 5L and adjust upward if required) to them. Will also check re other flavourings in that range - cheery or raspberry & lime cider anyone?