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Rapid fermentation of cider- ITS ALIVE!!!!


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Bucket and short piece of fence post, mashy smashy. Into the other bucket for the "scratting" and it chops fine.

 

 

I used this method a few years ago using a hardwood post with door handles attached as a bumper and a big stainless stock pot. The resulting cirder was much better than I've made since by alternative means but it was chuffing hardwork as I reduced apples to pulp in one hit.

 

The scratting bucket is okay with quartered apples once you've got the hang of it but its fiddly and prone to chewing it's self to bit if you go at it with anything less than extreme care.

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I've sussed the bucket, leave at least 2" of pulp behind on every fill up and it blitzes through them, now got a total of 10 gallons on the go!

 

(Plus 5 gallons of Festival IPA). Bottoms up!

Wahey! Theres a boozy party in micks shed and everybody's invited!!!

What about a cement mixer attachment on the end of a drill? It's what I use on softer fruits.

Do you use it on your plums?

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I have the answer Mr WAck WAck, you need kids to do this for you in the summer holiday. Oh how me and the dogs are wetting ourselves..........

 

Doooood, no sane female wants my kids!! As GM once said " any club that would have me as a member, i wouldn't want to join". Thats kind of the way i roll with ladies that express an interest in bearing my progeny. I'm sort of twisting on twenty now but hey, waited this long so may as well hold out for the perfect lass ( owns 30ft inboard, can breast pigeons, digs lug, can change a clutch and looks like rachel riley), there must be loads of them like that out there.

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Doooood, no sane female wants my kids!! As GM once said " any club that would have me as a member, i wouldn't want to join". Thats kind of the way i roll with ladies that express an interest in bearing my progeny. I'm sort of twisting on twenty now but hey, waited this long so may as well hold out for the perfect lass ( owns 30ft inboard, can breast pigeons, digs lug, can change a clutch and looks like rachel riley), there must be loads of them like that out there.

Errrrrrr no but I can pick some elements at random for you to Focus on..... Breasts, clutch, twenty, Rachel, way-to-go

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Wahey! Theres a boozy party in micks shed and everybody's invited!!?

It's outside the shed, as its cooler there, so if you're stealthy and can get past the dog and the trip wired 12g alarm mines in the back yard you could nick it and have your own party without me invited!

 

The first 5 gallons was done and dusted in under 36 hours, mental!

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If anyone is wanting to make a rotary scratter, the ones with a cylinder of wood with screws in it like this:

 

https://encrypted-tbn3.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcTdfrKOv2xOxmlM4H1Axt6LomB4pHpDXFCvI3f-hJuhhFjvqRFW

 

I had this cylinder turned out of hard wood but in all honesty, I'll never get round to it so I'm happy for it to go free to a good home if you cover the postage. It's 150mm diameter and 200mm long - postage wise, it weighs about 2.5kg

 

null_zps21f7ec73.jpg

Edited by Jonty
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PM sent Jonty :-)

Get you speedy fingers! We were looking at replacing ours last year as it's well passed its sell by date, must be knocking on for 25 years old now.

 

Should be set for pressing in the next 3 or 4 weeks all being well.

 

This is pretty much the same as our behemoth :

 

43256_1.jpg

Edited by twitchynik
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Get you speedy fingers! We were looking at replacing ours last year as it's well passed its sell by date, must be knocking on for 25 years old now.

 

Should be set for pressing in the next 3 or 4 weeks all being well.

 

This is pretty much the same as our behemoth :

 

43256_1.jpg

 

 

That is a thing of beauty. Wowsers!

Sold to the gent from kent

 

:-) Cheers fella

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I obviously missed something. I ended up building a stand for mine so the juice ran straight out of the press, through a filter funnel and into my 5gal, lidded fermenting bin.

 

Are you supposed to press into a smaller container and then decant this into your fementing bin as all the examples I've seen seem to be very low to the ground, you can barely get a bucket under them.

 

I have to say, even if I did invent my own rather lofty method of extracting the juice, it seem to work quite well, I could leave the press trickling right into the fermenter whilst I washed, chopped and pulped the next batch. Mind you, it was proper wobbly turning the handle and there were one or two close disasters averted by some lightning reactions!

 

First lot is looking good and clear, ready for bottling this weekend! As if this wasn't enough home-brew booze I also managed to sneak another 5g of Woodforde's Admirals Reserve past the missus this weekend, tis bubbling away like a good 'un!

Edited by mick miller
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There is no perfect way. Sounds like you're doing alright for a Heath Robinson set up, which most home brews are.

 

Buckets from our press tap, poured into holding barrels then we pump to the fermenting barrels stored in a shed.

 

If you can make it one day, it's worth a trip down to Wilkins in Somerset and see how they do it - http://wilkinscider.com/

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Another thing we learned is if you can, try and get your scratter to empty straight in to your press. Saves a lot of ball ache.

 

Also, we reckon that over pressing (to try and get more juice yield) isn't all that good and can taint the flavour. We left the big press locked down overnight over night one year and we got a bit more juice out bit the resultant cider wasn't all that good. Almost like the apple pips had leached and things went a bit sharp.

 

Steady as you go and keeping it simple have always yielded the best results.

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Righto, let's hope I haven't utterly ballsed it up, tasted alright from the juice though.

That's the best test, aside the end result! You might have tastes differing flavours as you pressed - the nicest juice is that which comes out without pressing.

 

There's no harm in racking and checking the juice as it ferments. Just make sure you leave no air gap if/when you do. Top up with water or cheap apple juice.

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Guest cookoff013

with beer, what i do to get rapid fermentation, is aeorate the ber before adding the yeast. this O2 is for the yeast to bud / multiply. the more yeast, the quicker the culture takes over fermentation and gets to work on the main event. converting carbohydrate into alcohol.

 

my last batch was done with nottingham, and i had a 2" lees at the bottom. the "best" fermentation i have ever had.

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