Cider from my tree!

[Andy - Go Hawks!]

Hi all,
well its cider time so heres what I have tried to do.
The old breville juicer was pushed to its limits to produce 15 litres of juice/slush from apples from my tree.
These apples had been picked or windfallen and left to 'mature' in a box for 2 weeks and then left in the sun on cotton fabric to really start to 'age'...in fact some got too hot and partially cooked!
I have added nothing to the 'juice' except 750g of brown sugar in 2 litres of hot water to get the thing started.
The yeast is naturally growing on the apple skins and hopefully fermentation will start within the week.
I know its russian roulette on which yeast will be the 'dominant' one but I wanted to try to produce a scrumpy the natural way and not use campden tablets and pitch a yeast.
It'll probably give me 16 litres of vinegar but thems the risks!
Any of you guys tried natural yeast ciders with any success?

Cheers

Andy

[Andy - Go Hawks!]

Well what do I know....its fermenting after 18 hrs!

[Bizier]

Awesome work Andy.

I am really keen to know how it turns out. Did you take an OG reading?

And if it goes aceto, maybe it is the best damn apple cider vinegar in the world that you have there. I might buy it back off you, I love the stuff.

[Andy - Go Hawks!]

The OG was 1060...one thing I will say is that leaving the skin on,and using a juicer rather than a press leaves an awful lot of chlorophyll (ie greeness) to the brew - I used green eating apples.
Hopefully I should be able to decant the clear liquid off at end of fermentation.
Ive got another few hundred apples ready to juice...with these I will remove all skin except for 10-20 apples (to use the wild yeast again) and see how much clearer the liquid is.

Andy

[drsmurto]

Have a read of this. Lots of good ifno on making cider naturally.

Keen to hear how this turns out. I have juiced apples for cider before but used Wyeast 4766 to ferment it.

One thing - you don't need to add sugar to apple juice. Apple juice has an SG of ~1.048 by itself. Assuming it ferments out to near 1.000 which is likely as its simple sugars you end up with 6%. An SG of 1.060 has the potential of giving you 7.8% if it finishes at 1.000......

And finally, if you are aiming for scrumpy dont you need to add fresh chicken wings while its fermenting? Heard that somewhere - probably an urban myth.....

[Andy - Go Hawks!]

And finally, if you are aiming for scrumpy dont you need to add fresh chicken wings while its fermenting? Heard that somewhere - probably an urban myth.....

You are not going to believe this Doc....
As a young fella back in England, my mates dad owned a cider-pub called "The Ship and Castle" in Bristol.
Proper scrumpy house with sawdust on the floor (for the less 'able' drinkers!).
He SWORE (and I believe him) that 'back in the day' there was an added 'extra'.
After fermentation, and this was a big pub btw, the brew was frozen in 200 pint batches...the 'liquid' was cut into pieces, as was the sediment. The ratio was 10:1 upon defrosting and into the wooded casks was added a dead animal...allegedly a cat!!!
Now true or not, my friends Dad was called Mike Bevan and to this day, the 'Ship and Castle' in Bristol serves to football fans of Bristol City FC (its next to the ground of Bristol City called Ashton Gate) a truely unique and potent Cider...........
I've drunk there as a young'un and can say that a two pint limit was enforced by the body,not the landlord!!
Urban Myth,maybe.
In Bristol,very likely!!

Cheers

Andy

[drsmurto]

That's gold!

[Paul]

How did it turn out?