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My cider as just stopped bubbling, three days in. The lid is all condensation speckled and it as a temp of around 16c, it smells lovely very appleicous, i did a reading out of curiosity it has come down a little it's now at 1040, do i leave it alone now for a week say, do my readings etc, then bottle up.
P.S. on bottling up do i resugar or does it not need it being fizzy as now anyway (very small bubbles).

Hi Bubble,

If the reading is really 1040 it's not done. What was the original gravity?

It may have stopped fermenting because the temperature is too low. What's the yeast?

Or it may still be fermenting but the CO2 is escaping from somewhere other than through the airlock.

Take another reading tomorrow. If it's the same it's stopped fermenting, probably because the temperature has dropped too low. If the CO2 is escaping the gravity will be lower.

Cheers,

Oliver

Bubble, the reason it has fine bubbles in it at the moment and seems already carbonated is that it has co2 from fermentation still in suspension. That and the fact that the SG is still at 1.040 screams 'still fermenting.' As Oliver asked, what yeast did you end up using and what was your OG? Did you add extra sugar or just go all juice?

original reading was 1052, i used a champagne yeast from my brewshop. i used 1kg of brew sugar and 500g of sucrose + some apples chopped up and chucked in? If the yeast as died say what do i do now? do i warm the bugger up/throw in another yeats or just leave it be?

How much juice did you use, if any?

Yeast won't be dead, just perhaps stalled. If that's the case, you'll want to warm up the fermenter a few degrees and give it a gentle swirl (being careful not to splosh it about) to kick some of the yeasties that may have flocced out back into suspension.

When buying juice, I understand to avoid preservatives. Message received. But what about Acidity Regulator (330) and Vitamin C? I was in Aldi today and noticed their juice brand contains these.

A further question, what about those cloudy apple juices as compared to the clear 'urine sample' types? Does it affect the clarity of the cider? Ultimnately, I would like to go for what the Kerisac Cider people call a traditional, unfiltered, cider.

I use the Aldi juice all the time and IR works a treat so whatever those additives are meant to do, killing yeast isn't one of them.

Wish I could answer the cloudy juice question but I've never given it a go. Have often thought about it but cloudy juice tends to be that much more expensive to the point where I've not thought it worth bothering with.

bullfrog wrote:I've been contemplating doing one of these, too. Do let us know how your little batch goes because you're right; a full batch is definitely not on the cheap side.

Opps...uh...I've been busy, okay?

As I recall, it wasn't any better than the cheaper juices but there was a slight skin-like flavour which did add a little complexity - which was no bad thing. In no way would I consider it worthwhile doing an entire batch solely from this stuff.

I've done a couple of these 100% Juice ciders and I thought I'd share a couple of simple tips.

I use the champagne yeast (EC-1118). SWMBO won't allow any other variety as she prefers the 'A bit of a Tart' cider.

Sweetness, or lackthereof, is an issue. I reckon I've solved it by using Pear Juice. Pear Cider usually tastes like liquified Fruit Tingles, so I figured that using a bit in the blend would sweeten it up a bit. My batch used around 17% pear juice (which sounds like a lot I suppose) and it really did the trick. Don't get me wrong, it's nowhere near as sweet as your commercial ciders. The tartness is still there, it's just balanced by a hint of sweetness.

Ciders also benefit by ageing in the bottle. I'm not talking your regulation 2 months. I'm talking 9 -12 months. The flavour improves magnificently. I discovered this by accident when I found a cider of mine that was bottled nearly a year before. We could taste that it was the same cider that we polished off around 6 months earlier, it had just sat there and gotten better in that time! I'm now moving my cider brewing from September to May just to get that extra ageing in before summer.

I asked above about those cloudy apple juices. I can confirm that the cloudy juices make cloudy cider. You don't need all cloudy juice either. I've gotten cloudy ciders by just using 25% cloudy juice.

I'm going to try a couple of bottles of that Pink Lady Apple Juice in place of some of the Aldi juice in the next batch, along with the pear and the cloudy apple.