"Billy" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"George.com" wrote:

Any of yous tried making cider before?

This weekend just gone I got about making up some cider. 3 days of work
yielded 22 litres. An interesting experience but one I am going to have
to
stream line if I do it next time around.

The apples were free, scavenged from a few trees round the neighbourhood.

Cleaning them was no problem, dunking in a big tub.

Cutting them up and cutting out the odd bad bit or bug was laborious. I
did
have some help at one stage which speeded things up a bit.

Shredding the apple pieces in a kitchen whizz was also time consuming.
Its
gets easier the longer you go on. But. If done every year I reckon I will
have to make some sort of apple scratterer.

Then came the pressing. Roftl (not).

I had made up a frame from old off cut pine 4 x 2 to hold a car scissor
jack
(850 kg limit) and an old chilly bin with a hole cut in the end.

Worked ok to start with however the hole was too small to let all
thenjuice
out and it filled up the chilly bin past a certain compression point.

From there I borrowed a (small) grape press. Worked to a point but did
not
extract as much juice as I hoped.

So, I drilled holes in a 10 litre plastic bucket and went back to the
scissor jack press. Got more juice than the hand press. Still not enough
holes though. Near the bottom of compression the frame cracked.

Drilled more holes in the bucket and strengthened the frame.

Next press was the best yet.

After a bit more stress the frame came apart at one end. A few screws put
it
back together.

A couple of final presses and 22 litres were deposited in 5 carboys.

2 are relying on natural yeasts for fermentation. One I will add a little
bit of extra yeast in to. One I have sulphited and will add yeats in. The
final carboy is only 1/2 full. I will have to cut in some more apple
juice,
sulphite and then add yeast.

Interesting exercise. Note to self for next time (if there is a next
time).

Build an apple scratterer.
Build a sturdier frame
Use a bottle jack with maybe 1 ton plus capacity
Find a really good basket to hold the pulped apple juice.
Hope the finished cider is worth all the effort.

Worth trying from start to finish at least once though.

rob

Try to keep the SO2 under 20 ppm at inoculation. Wine yeast are more
resistant to SO2 than wild yeast. The alternative is to hit the juice
with a large inoculation to swamp out wild yeast (note: wild yeast
aren't always bad but can be surprising).

1 lb potassium metabisulfite / 1 gallon of water = 5% solution SO2.
ppm x gallons x .063 = ml of 5% solution
This formula isn't exact because sugars and aldehydes suck up SO2.

If you want to keep some sweetness in the cider, the easiest thing is to
put the bottled cider in a refrigerator (40F - 4C) or sterile filter.

the wild yeast brew has been sitting for 2 days now and the fermentation has
really (and I mean really) slowed down to the point of being almost non
active. Maybe either not enough yeast or not enough sugars. I will look at
pitching a little bit of yeast in to the stuff tomorrow maybe. See what that
does.

rob