So I have 500lbs of apple.....

[OrchardRoad]

How'd it go?

 

[Spencerthebuilder]

Quick question.. Doing 4 gallons of preservative free cider. Fermenting nicely with some QA 23. Does cider benefit from extended aging? I'd like to degas and bottle for Thanksgiving gifts

 

[varano14]

Quick question.. Doing 4 gallons of preservative free cider. Fermenting nicely with some QA 23. Does cider benefit from extended aging? I'd like to degas and bottle for Thanksgiving gifts

I have zero direct experience because I am still in the fermentation stage, but from what I have read it seems that cider/wine takes forever to clear so that may or may not affect your bottle timing. I plan to taste it often along the way and if it tastes good I may bottle one carboy cloudy for holiday drinking and leave the other two to clear/age longer.

 

[varano14]

Racked all three buckets into carboys last night.

The initial bucket that I started fermentation on a few days early fermented to completely dry. There was still a lot of gas in it but the taste seemed alright, very crisp, but very little apple taste. Reminded me of a dry white. I imagine I may back sweeten with frozen apple concentrate but I will let things go for awhile and see. I prefer dry wines but I do want some apple taste.

The fermentation of the other two buckets slowed down greatly right around 1.030-1.035. The first bucket fermented vigorously basically right up until it was done. Not sure what the deal was with these two but I decided to get them under airlock and let them keep doing their thing. I also added some yeast nutrient and energizer for good measure. This morning the airlocks were bubbling along at a good pace so I think everything is okay just may take longer.

 

[Dennis Griffith]

I'm getting into this late (on vacation). We finished our apples before we left and got several gallons (sons spirited away about 10 gallons for his own brew). I saw some discussion on presses early up. I can tell you that the one I use for grapes is not stout enough to do a thorough job of getting the juice out. Works great for grapes, but the best type for apples and pears in one that has a heavy steel frame and uses a hydraulic bottle jack to press with. And a stainless tub is a must, IMHO. I have a friend that has this setup, and we press apples and pears there. He also has board that he layers in as he fills the tub. They have grooves that allow the juice to get out from the middle. The pulp is fairly dry after going thru this press.

 

[OrchardRoad]

I've got 5 gallons of spiced cyser in primary with Wyeast cider yeast and I put some brown sugar in mine too. I saw a video where some folks put dried apples in the secondary to round out and give a more "baked apple" type flavor. My neighbor still has a lot of apples on his tree so I'll grab some this weekend and throw them in the dehydrator- experimentation is so much fun!

 

[OrchardRoad]

That is sorta the smell, will it hurt to at the nutrient this late? Probably a week into the ferment already. If it is too late will the smell effect the wine or will the ferment just slow down?

feed it and see if under less stress the fermentation picks up

 

[varano14]

I'm getting into this late (on vacation). We finished our apples before we left and got several gallons (sons spirited away about 10 gallons for his own brew). I saw some discussion on presses early up. I can tell you that the one I use for grapes is not stout enough to do a thorough job of getting the juice out. Works great for grapes, but the best type for apples and pears in one that has a heavy steel frame and uses a hydraulic bottle jack to press with. And a stainless tub is a must, IMHO. I have a friend that has this setup, and we press apples and pears there. He also has board that he layers in as he fills the tub. They have grooves that allow the juice to get out from the middle. The pulp is fairly dry after going thru this press.

Using the hydraulic press what was your apple to cider rate. I got 19 gallons of cider from about 400lbs of apple (The other 100 was turned into apple sauce and butter). So it took me about 21 lbs of apple to get 1 gallon of cider. I realize that the apple type probably affects this to some extent.

 

[Dennis Griffith]

Good question as we didn't weight the apples. We has a bumper crop and it was all we could do this year to get it done prior to a Disney trip my wife planned. I usually have enough bushel baskets, but we had to resort to wheel barrels, 5 gallon buckets, 20 gallon muck buckets (clean ones, of course). It took us two days to process the apples (into the night). My wife earned her trip, I must say. There was 5 of us working. There is now plenty of cider, hard cider, apple butter, and apple pie for a while. My brother said it was the best cider he had tasted. As for pressing them, I felt we couldn't get enough juice out and the pulp was still to moist using my wine press. So we adjourned to my friends house to press with his commercial job. It is a 20 ton hydraulic press. As for estimates, I'd say his got maybe 50% more juice out than my wine press, which has always worked well for grapes. I just thought I'd use our press this year, but the son and I are already looking at a hydraulic press for next year.

 

[varano14]

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Seems everyone had a bumper crop of apples this year. That is part why I ended up taking this on. The friends who had the trees had already given away as many as anyone wanted to everyone they knew. They asked about wine and I said sure its possible but having none of the equipment was hesitant to take it on. But after some pestering and a glass or two of wine I said what the heck I'll take as many as you want to give me and figure it out. The rest is mostly contained in this thread. I took 10 crates full which is as many crates as they had. the one we weighted came in at like 52lbs. I would say there was easily 10 times that many apples still on the trees, not counting the perfectly fine ones on the ground. Some trees gave up two crates and looked untouched. They said anything left behind would rot so I hated leaving it but 500lbs was already way more then I was set up to handle.

Plans for next year include buying an actual crusher and recruiting the donors of the apples to help. I think with another two or three people I could easily do 2-3 times as much on a Saturday as the manual crushing took awhile.

Can confirm it was the best cider I have ever had.

 

[Vinegaroon]

Seems everyone had a bumper crop of apples this year. That is part why I ended up taking this on. The friends who had the trees had already given away as many as anyone wanted to everyone they knew. They asked about wine and I said sure its possible but having none of the equipment was hesitant to take it on. But after some pestering and a glass or two of wine I said what the heck I'll take as many as you want to give me and figure it out. The rest is mostly contained in this thread. I took 10 crates full which is as many crates as they had. the one we weighted came in at like 52lbs. I would say there was easily 10 times that many apples still on the trees, not counting the perfectly fine ones on the ground. Some trees gave up two crates and looked untouched. They said anything left behind would rot so I hated leaving it but 500lbs was already way more then I was set up to handle.

Plans for next year include buying an actual crusher and recruiting the donors of the apples to help. I think with another two or three people I could easily do 2-3 times as much on a Saturday as the manual crushing took awhile.

Can confirm it was the best cider I have ever had.

“The quantity of juice varies with the type and quality of apples, but a bushel will produce somewhere between 2 to 4 gallons of juice. On average, 5 bushels will yield about 15 gallons of fresh cider (apple juice).” I use a small basket press and typically get closer to 4 than 2 gallons per bushel (42lbs+-). But it takes time, as in I stand there and let it trickle. It seems like you did pretty well for short timelines and improvised equipment. I quoted the above from Hubbell Family Farm.

 

[G259]

@Arne that's 500 pounds of apples, where is he going to put them for freezing?

Look for a wholesale freezer outlet selling grocery or some other items, they may let you keep them in a corner somewhere, if they know that it is a 1-off deal, and you won't be asking them ALL the time. Offer to bring them some wine when it's done!