Beer makers don’t know how to make cider

My husband showed me this forum called Home Brew Talk. There happens to be a forum on wine, mead, and cider there. I’ve been following all three, learning when I can, and helping others if I know.

What I have learned is that beer makers don’t know how to make cider. Yes, I’ve probably made some enemies stating that, but I have my reasons.

First off, beer makers try to have cider drinkable within weeks because that is how beer is made. Because it is made out of fruit like wine, apple needs to be aged like wine. It is possible with the right materials in the right environment to bottle cider in a month, but it needs time to age.

Secondly, partly because there was an Apple Wine recipe that gained popularity on the site, they think they have to add sugar to make cider. This process is called chaptalising, where sugar is added out of fear there is not enough natural sugar in the grapes or fruit being used. My generic wine recipe calls for it, as wine is at least 10% alcohol. Cider is around 7% naturally, and adding sugar raises the alcohol, and therefore bumps it into the wine category. One person on the forum responded that commercial cider makers do add sugar. My rebuttal is simple – craft cider makers spend soooo much time figuring out what kind of apples to grow, caring for the trees, picking the apples, grinding them, and pressing out the juice that they are not going to add sugar after all that work. They want to taste their labor, not cover it up. It is the ciders who use concentrate juice are the ones that are going to add sugar.

Last of all, there is the idea of cold crashing. It is possible with some strains of beer yeast to kill off all the yeast by cooling the beer in a refrigerator, allowing the brewer to add back sugar without fear of it starting to ferment again. For starters, some craft cider makers working out of their home or sheds or whatever have their tanks outside or in unheated buildings. If it freezes, no big deal – it will start fermenting again when it thaws. In fact, they embrace the lower temperatures, claiming it improves taste. There is even a method called keeving where they strip the juice of its nutrients, and then ferment it at 5⁰C, which is 41⁰ F – about the temperature of a refrigerator. Point to all this is, cider doesn’t cold crash, and so these naïve beer makers attempt it and then wonder why their cider exploded when they added sugar as a sweetener.

How to Make Fruit Wine

To make cider or wine, you need a fruit or fruit juice source. Most wine supply stores sell kits that have what you need for this. Or, the other alternative is to use the following method:

Fruit wine from fruit
3 lbs of fruit in a mesh bag
1 gallon of water
2 lbs of sugar or honey

Fruit wine or Cider from Juice
1 gallon juice – can be from concentrate, but fresh is better
1 lb of sugar or 1 ½ lb of honey – leave out if doing cider

Additional ingredients
¼ tsp of acid blend or the juice from 2 lemons if needed
½ tsp Pectic Enzyme recommended
½ tsp potassium metasulfite
1 packet of wine yeast

Heat one quart of water or juice warm enough to dissolve the sugar or honey, then set it aside to cool. Sanitize the jug or primary fermenter with a ¼ tsp potassium metasulfite and water solution per the instructions. If using fruit, put it in a mash bag and mash it up inside the primary fermenter. Add the sugar water/juice solution and enough water or juice to fill one gallon. Test the pH and the acid blend or lemon juice to lower it to the desirable pH between 3.2 and 3.8 and close the container. When the temperature of the batch is no warmer than 75⁰ F, add the pectic enzyme and cover it. Let it sit for 12 hours before adding the potassium metasulfite and covering it once again. Let it sit another 24 hours before adding the yeast and putting on an airlock. The airlock should start to show some activity around 24-48 hours later, but let it be for a week if it does not before tossing it. After about two weeks, rack the batch off of the lees into another bottle. After another two weeks, bottle the batch, and let it sit for about 3 months.

The directions for making cider are about the same, except that fresh apple juice is used and no extra sugar or honey is added. I cannot stress this point enough. Maybe I’ve been hanging around Cider Workshop too much. My husband’s beer making online research stumbled into a page which just happened to have a forum on cider, in which beer makers are rushing the batches and are worried that the ½ cup of sugar they added to a five gallon carboy of cider isn’t enough. It frustrates me, because real cider contains no added sugar, so their half cup is too much.

For more information, please consult The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry Garey or Cider: Making, Using, Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider by Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols. These books go into much greater detail than I have here.

Cleaning Bottles

Right before I bottled my first batch, I decided to purchase a Bottle Rinser and Bottle Tree. I was very glad that I did, as they are a time and space saver.

The Bottle Rinser, which can be found for about $15 is a plastic bowl with a spring pump in the middle. The bowl is filled up with a sanitizing solution, and the bottle mouth is placed over the pump. Pushing down on the bottle causes the pump to squirt the sanitizing solution up into the bottle. It is much faster than trying to clean it myself, plus it uses less water and therefore less sanitizer. I use a simple potassium metasulfite solution, while my husband uses Star San, an acid based no rinse sanitizer found at the brew supply store.

The Bottle Tree is a plastic pole with a wide base and little pegs coming out of the pole. Each sterilized bottle mouth is put on a peg so that any sanitizing fluid in it can drain out. The base is designed in such a way that it can hold some fluid without spilling on to the counters. A small Bottle Tree holds 45 bottles and costs about $20, and a large one holds 90 bottles and costs about $32. Personally, I’m nervous to have that tall of a tree that can hold 90 bottles at once, so I use the 45 bottle tree. Maybe I would feel different if we were doing larger batches. All I know is that I don’t have to figure out how to keep sanitized bottles clean yet let them drain out.

The Bottle Rinser is designed to be placed on top of the Tree, but I don’t do that because I find it easier to work down on the counter. I also am afraid of pushing down on the Rinser and accidentally tipping the Tree, even though it has a wide base.

If you keep used bottles for bottling, make sure to wash them out after using. This will get the previous contents out and any germs from the drinker. Plus, it will remove the contents that would attract bugs, especially fruit flies. Since the Bottle Rinser contains and sanitizing solution, it will not clean the bottles or remove any particles. I wash my bottles with dish washing solution and a bottle brush, though my husband is nervous about what dish washing soap might do to his beer. I also have a bottle brush to help scrub at the insides if need be, but it is easier to clean them when you finished using them before anything dries or cakes on.

Capping or Corking

There are several kinds of bottles and several kinds of ways to seal it. I’ve only worked with beer and wine bottles so far, so I’ll talk about those.

For home brewing of beer and cider, beer bottles work just fine, but they should not be screw type openings for capping. Bottling them is as fairly simple. A couple of caps are boiled to sanitize them, and possibly even make the rubber ring in them swell to make a better seal. The caps should be allowed to cool so that they can be handled without being hurt. My husband got a capper in which a magnet holds the cap. It is then set on the bottle, and the two levers crimp it down on the bottle. Fairly simple.

For wine bottles, there are corks. The method is similar, where you boil some corks and then use a corker to force the cork inside the bottle. The cheapest corker runs a little less than $10, where you load the cork into a chute, place it on the bottle, and then use a rubber mallet to get the cork into the bottle. This did not sound ideal for me.

The guy who let me try his homemade mead actually grew up on his family’s vineyard and winery, and he told me not to go buy the $20 corker, and yet that is what I did. It mimics the industrial corkers in that you use two levers to compress the cork, and then a third lever to force the cork into the bottle. He warned me that it would take two people, but sometimes I find that I can do it myself.

There was a third variety offered to me that was about $30, and it was a double leaver corker that worked a little more sophisticated than the rubber mallet method. I didn’t care for that kind, and the store clerk didn’t think too highly of it, either.

Once I had decided on a corker, it was time for me to buy cork. Low and behold, they were out of real corks, and only had plastic corks. If given the choice, I wouldn’t have bought the plastic ones because real cork is biodegradable. However, I have to say that the plastic ones are growing on me. The biggest pro I see to them is that they don’t require the bottle to be laid on its side to keep the cork wet. If there is still fermentation going on and the buildup of CO2, corks can be forced out. I would think that a bottle stored standing up would create less of a mess than a bottle laid on its side. Plastic corks also seem fairly easy to cork by myself after I got the hang of it.

There are other kinds of closures, such as the champagne mushroom cork held down with wire. I suggest consulting books and your local supply store to see if you want to work with an alternative method.

It is also recommended that when you are capping or corking to boil a few more than what you will need in case something goes wrong – you drop them, they break, refuse to work, bend funny, etc.

Someday, if I really do open a winery, I’ll have to buy the Floor Corker Machine, which will cost me about $125, but I would think it would be easier on your hands to use.

Bottling

In my last post, I said that when the must clears, there is another layer of lees, and the airlock stops bubbling, that it is time to bottle. However, before bottling a batch, test it first with the hydrometer to make sure all the sugar is gone. If there is some present and the yeast continue to work on it in a bottle, the pressure from the released CO2 could cause the bottle to explode. I also rack one more time minutes before bottling so that I don’t have to worry about sucking up lees when bottling. Using a hydrometer, a batch is ready to be bottled if it is 1.005 or less. If it is ready, it needs to be chemically treated to ensure it stops fermenting so that it does not release any more CO2 and create a “bottle bomb.”

Bottling works just the same as racking, only instead of having a second jug, there are bottles to fill up. When I bottle, I put the sterilized bottles on a chair with a large towel that I don’t care if it gets stained or not. The sterilized bottles are lined up to make it easier to process. I rack by either putting a clamp on the siphon tubing so that I can stop the flow and move my tubing to the next bottle, or I use a bottling wand. I got mine from my local supply store, and it is a tube with a ball in the bottom that has a little rod sticking out. Gravity and the force of the flow will push the ball down, blocking the flow, but when it is placed in the bottom of a bottle, the rod pushes the ball up, allowing liquid though.

When bottling, keep the hose or wand at the bottom to prevent splashing and too much contact with air. Fill the bottle as full as possible and then remove the hose or wand. The level will drop since the hose or wand was taking up space. Ideally, the bottle should only have half an inch to one inch of space between the top of the fluid to the cap or cork to minimize the amount of air in the bottle, or headspace.

I find bottling easier to do with two people. One person bottles while the other person takes away the full bottles and replaces them with new bottles. The second person may even have enough time to cork or cap the bottles, depending on the equipment. If there is only one person available for bottling, I highly recommend sterilizing a plate so that the tubing that goes in the bottle can be set down without contamination or the need to sterilize it again.

I should note that this is the method used for making a dry still drink, like wine. I’ll talk about how to make the drink sweet or carbonated in a later blog.

Racking

When I was talking about air being the enemy of cider, I mentioned that when there is no more sugar in the batch, the yeast die and fall to the bottom in process called flocculation and create lees. The lees will be a pile of sediment in the bottom of the jug, which will be easy to see if the jug is clear. If there is no more air passing though the airlock, then it is time to move to the next step of the wine and cider making process of racking.

Racking is siphoning the liquid, now called must, off of the lees. If it is not done, the must will take on an unpleasant flavor from the lees. I once heard a cider maker say something about he had never lost a batch of cider racking to early, but he had lost a batch from racking too late. I use that piece of advice in my winemaking.

It is easiest to take the jug and place it on the counter and leave it for a few minutes so that any disturbed lees can sink to the bottom again. A second container that has been sterilized will be placed at a lower elevation from the first container, such as on a chair or on the floor. I prefer a chair because I don’t have to bend down as much, it is easier to see, and it doesn’t require the hose to be as long or as much worry about it coming out. From here, there are two methods. The cheaper method is to take a sterilized hose and put it in the first container above the lees. After swishing your mouth with vodka to “sterilize” you mouth, drop down and begin sucking on the other end of the tube gently to start the siphoning process, and then place the other end in the second container. The better way to siphon is to purchase a siphon device from the supply store, sterilize it, and follow the directions provided.

Try to avoid splashing when racking to avoid contact with air to help prevent oxidization, which dulls the flavor. Pull the tub or siphon out of the first jug slightly before it would suck up any lees. Place an airlock on the second container and set it aside. After the first racking, the must may still be a little hazy and it may continue to push CO2 though the airlock, which is okay. After a few weeks or even months, if pectic enzyme was added, the must will clear, the airlock will stop bubbling, and there will be another layer of lees present. Then it is time for bottling.

Primary Fermenter

In my attempt to make a peach wine, I used pitchers to put my fruit in mesh bags into with liquid to start fermenting, and I used cotton balls to act sort of as an airlock. After that whole ordeal, I went to my local supply store and asked for a small primary fermenter. Most primary fermenters are buckets with lids on them which can be sold in three or six gallon sizes. Part of the reason I did not pick one up before was because the lid looked wrong to me. There was no place to put an airlock! I mentioned this to the sale’s clerk, and he said they have a special drill to put a hole in the lid that an airlock will fit into. I just finished up a strawberry wine in the primary fermenter last week, and it looked and smelled good, and I now have a bell pepper/peach wine started in it. After about a week in that kind of container, it is best to remove the fruit, which is why a mesh sack in a bucket works, and move the liquid into a glass bottle or carboy for small batches. These allow you to see into the liquid, noting the color, clarity, and presence of lees.

Order a Home Orchard Society Make-A-[Fruit]Tree by December 31, 2009

I forgot that I need to give a plug for the Home Orchard Society. They are a group who are centered out of Portland, Oregon. They have several forums on their website, along with some other useful things such as Mason Bees, some eBooks about rootstock, apple diseases, and apple blooming, along with some articles on other topics.

Why I really needed to put the plug in was because they will take custom orders for trees for $12 up until December 31, 2009. You tell them what kind of tree you want, and you tell them what kind of rootstock you want it on, and they will build it for you. You just have to go pick it up at their annual Fruit Propagation Fair/Scion Exchange in March at the Hillsboro Fairgrounds. Take a look at http://www.homeorchardsociety.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=3020

Should have blogged about this earlier in case this would be a good Christmas present…

Read the Labels

I was poking though my freezer a few months ago and discovered several packages of peaches my mother has bought, cut up, and froze for me. I got out my copy of The Joy of Home Winemaking by Terry A Garey and looked up how to make a peach wine. Well, things didn’t go so well.

First off, I needed to put the peaches in a mesh bag, and put that in a primary fermenter and let them sit for a week with yeast. I didn’t have a primary fermenter, let alone a small one, so I used two juice pitchers and plugged the spouts with cotton balls to mimic something like an airlock, as sometimes the books say to use a cotton-wool bung. I have asked my local supply store for a cotton-wool bung, but sometimes we just don’t see eye to eye, and this is one of them. They didn’t have any.

Originally, I made up a batch and realized I over sugared it, but then I realized it wouldn’t fit into one pitcher, so I split it into two pitchers, added more water and peaches, and figured out the potential alcohol of each. Then I took the pH of both pitchers. My first batch of apple wine called for the juice of two lemons or some concentrate lemonade to lower the pH. This time, I went with lemonade, and got my pH to the desired level.

At the end of a week, I was suppose to remove the peaches and put the remaining liquid into a glass jug and fit it with an airlock. I went to test the potential alcohol at this time to make sure things were progressing as they should. I got the exact same number as when I started, which meant that the yeast did nothing for an entire week. Something was very wrong.

My hypothesis is that the lemonade I added to lower the pH contained some sort of preservative, which killed the yeast, and no amount of fussing with it would make it alive to start fermenting. When I bought the lemonade, I checked the ingredients on the label, but I’m not completely convinced there wasn’t any preservatives present. Since then, I have bought a powdered acid blend to lower the pH from my supply store, and any time I buy juice or processed fruit, I make sure it specifically says no preservatives.

Adding Pectic Enzyme

I have mentioned before the addition of pectic enzyme. It is a chemical which breaks down pectin, a gelling agent found naturally in apples. In fact, to make jams or jellies, pectin is added to make the fruit gel. However, for cider and wine, pectin creates a haze.

Remember my second batch, the one made out of Whole Foods Apple Juice in a glass jug? More specifically, I’m talking about the one I just dumped yeast in and let it turn to cider. Well, I didn’t add pectic enzyme to it, and the results show just looking at it. It is a very cloudy drink. In a normal fermentation, when the sugar is gone, the yeast dies and falls to the bottom and becomes what is called lees. If I had added pectic enzyme, the solids causing the juice to be cloudy would have fallen to the bottom at the same time, and I would have been left with clear cider.

Why couldn’t I add the pectic enzyme later? Well, it turns out that the enzyme really doesn’t work well in the presence of alcohol, so it wouldn’t do me any good.

At this point, my choices are to filter it, or drink it as it is. I’m not really looking to buy a filter at the moment, and I don’t want to increase the amount of air my cider will have contact with. Since it will probably just be my husband and I drinking it, I’ll risk the cloudiness. FYI, unfiltered cider is called scrumpy cider, though I’m not completely sure that is what I have on my hands here.