HomebrewandBeer.com forum

Hi Fellow Brewers,

First post on this site, so I'm new to your ranks. Have been brewing for about six months now, so am relatively new. Thought I knew a fair bit about brewing before I decided to start looking online for people that share my hobby and have been growing my knowledge every day since!

My question is this: Now that I've got the hang of extract brewing (which was the first thing I wanted to do to get away from K&K) I'd like to start brewing a few ciders, and maybe even a hard lemonade, perhaps. I've heard that one has to add quite a bit of nutrient to brews of that nature, even if making a starter, so I wanted to see what people would suggest for a cider.

My missus, after buying me my first HB kit (which has since been expanded on) all those months ago, got into brewing her own mead. In that, before pitching yeast, she has to add dried citric acid, and I assume that that's for yeast nutrient. Would pinching some of her citric and adding it to my cider (or lemonade) do the job, or should I take myself down to the shop for something more effective?

Cheers,

Jeremiah

I too am at the stage where my partner is stockpiling bottles of Berri apple juice in order for me to make her a cider.

I think the citric acid might be more for a tartness adjustment rather than a nutrient kind of thing.

Do a google search for "yeast nutrient" and specify results from Australia... you will get somewhere.

ED: BTW good first post, welcome, and let everyone know what you are doing right and wrong with your extract brewing.

Cheers for that, Bizier.

Why is it that one will always overlook the most obvious solution? Second result in my Google search was for a CraftBrewer product and I'm already looking to get some more hops in from Ross (LHBS doesn't stock Centennial and I've had only good results from the CB stock) so I'll just add a 90g bag of that to my order.

Another quick question: I've not brewed anything before that would require extra nutrient (all of my beers, so far, have been ales in the ~5% abv range) so can anyone tell me how much nutrient would be needed to say a cider or a hard lemonade?

This is also getting a little OT, but what yeast would people recommend for a lemonade? I've got some Nottingham and some US05 lying around, but should I be hunting something else? I figured the US05 is a bit more neutral than the Nottingham, so was considering that...

Thanks,

Jeremiah

If you have time: http://thebrewingnetwork.com/shows/474