Turbo cider concentrate?

[lyonsie]

Finally decided to make a tc. My original plan was to make a batch of 30 liters cider/wine at about 13% and siphon to secondary and add another 30 liters of apple juice to get the apple flavours and sweetness back in whilst bringing the abv back down to around 6.5 and using the secondary fermentation to carbonate the cider too.

The plan is to transfer to plastic bottles and cold crash when im happy with carbonation levels.

Anyway being new to this I vastly underestimated the amount of sugar I would need to get to the 13% mark and ran out. Has anyone tried this and will it work?

Here's my recipe first fermentation should hit about 9% I think.

30l apple juice
500g light brown sugar
1.5 kg of sugar
1 cinnamon stick
1 mug strong tea
1 sachet of gervin gv13 cider yeast.

Pitched yeast today and sg was 1070.

[Leann ull]

Hello! introduce yourself 
13% fecking hell! are you planning on drinking this under the bridge on Friday nights!
You stress yeast even the Gervin which is a wine variant with that amount of fermentables and why some high abv kits do an initial pitch and then top up with more fermentables 2-3 days in once fermentation is in 3rd gear.
1.070 down to 1.0 is 9.2% and plenty for anything with 2 legs.
Too much sugar makes it thin even with the brown.
Stick to the 10% or below your liver and you palette will thank you for it

[lyonsie]

  haha oops hi everyone. Colm from rush co Dublin. Cheers for the swift reply.
Lol I had no intention of drinking it at 13% or 9 either. As it stands now I will be adding another 15 litres of apple juice bringingit back down to about 6 bottling immediately watching the carbonation like a hawk till im happy and cold crashing to stop the yeast then.
Well that's what I was hoping will happen anyway 

[Leann ull]

You have a couple of good clubs around you there welcome onboard the good Ship NHC.
Have a look at the wikki on fermenting cider by Will D.
By adding in more apple juice fermentation will kick off again if yeast is present so you need to kill that yeast with campden=hangover or preferably pasteurise.
Unlike beer yeast Cider will ferment down to 4-5 degrees and although it may stop or slow down by putting in the fridge to cold crash as soon as you take it out off shes goes again.
The easiest way is the cider I produce for the missus and her mates as they also like sweet or semi dry they just sit there with 7% of my bone dry and dilute to taste with straight juice. They end out with something in the 4-5% range tasting full of apples.
You can also get sweetness in by using non fermentable sweeteners like splenda etc.
One tip i will give you is if you are gonna mess around try it on a small batch first.

[lyonsie]

That' was the plan I planned to use the secondary fermentation to carb it in plastic bottles that were squeezed to create a vacum whilst filling to allow for it. Ie siphon off a litre add 500ml apple juice in a 2 l bottle till id worked out the vacum space required Didn't know about the low temp grr.

[lyonsie]

Thanks for the info CH couldn't find the wiki page. But got myself an indoor outdoor thermometer today and the fridge this will be going into to currently has its outdoor sensor in the top shelf and is thankfully reading 1.3 °c. Room temperature is currently 25.6 so im guessing it will go colder in the winter. 
Got bubbles today so iv a feeling this will take off like a rocket when its going properly.  Tempted now to up the sugar and get back to the original plan of 50/50 dilution before bottling when it does. Lol anything coming back out of the fridge once crashed won't get much of a chance to start fermenting again.   

If I can't get carbonation right in the plastic bottles ill have to invest more money  (I originally bought the fridge to convert it anyway) hopefully not in the next couple of weeks though.

[Shanna]

haha oops hi everyone. Colm from rush co Dublin. Cheers for the swift reply.
Lol I had no intention of drinking it at 13% or 9 either. As it stands now I will be adding another 15 litres of apple juice bringingit back down to about 6 bottling immediately watching the carbonation like a hawk till im happy and cold crashing to stop the yeast then.
Well that's what I was hoping will happen anyway 

Hi Colm welcome to the site. If I understand you correctly you want you to dilute the fermented cider with apple juice & then bottle letting the sugar from the apple juice carbonate the cider & then cold crash it once your happy with the carbonation level. I think this won't work as you expect as cold crashing does not kill yeast. It will make the cider clear by allowing some of the yeast & trub in suspension to drop to out. However if it's anything like beer there will be sufficient yeast left in suspension to more than continue fermentation & it will simply continue eating the simple sugars from the apple juice. I would imagine you would end up with a a lot of bottle bombs. Other more experienced cider makers might wantvto pitch in here but I would think you need to pasteurise the diluted cider instead & use jogging & forced carbonation for Co2.


Shanna

[pob]

BrewWiki

& Cider 101

[lyonsie]

Cheers for the help. Lol tbh is only my second attempt at brewing and the first was an on the rocks kit. It's definitely looking like pasteurisation at this stage now. I haven't a clue about force carbing though. Would I be right in saying that once its pasturised it will keep whilst refrigerated?
Lol iv a bit of reading to do and equipment to purchase before I can attempt this.

[Will_D]

Hi Colm,

You are more than welcome to come to our next meeting of the North County Brewers:

We meet every 2nd Tuesday of the Month in Swords, at the Old Boro (7 pm onwards) [Next is Aug 9th.]
... every 4th Tues in Malahide, in Fowlers at 7 pm.

We often have ciders, beers, meads, and have a shed loads of advice for newbies.

No need to bring any ciders, but if you also like beer prepare to have yer socks blown off!

For our local NCB threads see here:

http://www.nationalhomebrewclub.ie/forum/index.php/board,23.0.html

CU Soon

Will (Who may just have a medal or two for cider making)

l

[lyonsie]

Hi Will
Cheers for the offer I'll definitely pop along to swords next meeting.  Im at a loss as to the best way to carb this up now and as to what equipment ill need to get. Thanks a mill 

[lyonsie]

Just added 2.5 kg of sugar and iv seen less bubbles come out of my childs bubble machine.   
Read elsewhere that 500g of sugar ups the abv by 1% would this be correct? Looks like ill be getting very strong cider anyway.
As a person who doesn't usually drink apple juice unless its fermented has anyone any suggestions as to what to dilute this with? 

[bachus]

When cider isn't really cider at all ;-) To much sugar dude!

[lyonsie]

Your spot on. Its not cider at the minute. Although Im hoping it will be when its brought back down to something that could be called a cider by the addition of 30 more litres of apple juice in the next few days. Lol the clue is in the title. 

[bachus]

Have you heard about the freeze distillation? ;-)
http://www.distillingliquor.com/2015/02/13/how-to-make-applejack-freeze-distillation/