StillSmart

Since I’m hoping to get answers for my newbie questions, I thought I should add something to the discussion as well. Please don’t take this as bragging, but I haven’t seen a lot of postings on brewing hard cider. Since this is something that I can do, I thought I’d post the recipe, as it were.

I use 5 gallons of cider from the local mill. It’s pasteurized, but has no preservatives. I let this warm up to room temperature and add it to a sterilized brewing bucket. To it, I add 2 ½ tsp Pectic Enzyme, 3 tsp yeast nutrient and 4 pounds of sugar. I then stir it with a sterilized spoon until the sugar is dissolved. I then make a slurry of 1 cup water at 90 Fahrenheit and two packages of Champagne Yeast. I let that sit for 15 minutes and then stir it in to the cider. Then I cover and attach an air lock.

The timing of the next bit is important. You don’t want your yeast eating too much of your apple sugar (unless you like dry cider and that’s a whole different story) 72 hours after first making the cider, I add another 4 pounds of sugar. (Add it slowly, it’s quite explosive) then put the cover back on. Wait another 72 hours and add 4 more pounds of sugar. Wait another 72 and add 4 more cups of sugar. Then let it sit and ferment. (It’s going to go a while)

After the primary is done bubbling, rack it to the secondary and let it sit. After it clears, you can bottle it but I would recommend using plastic bottles as it’s still fairly violent. The other thing I do is take about 3 gallons and freeze it for a few days, then I put it in a nylon bag in salad spinner and centrifuge it. That generally brings it up to between 25 and 30 percent. I don’t know if this is any help, but it’s all I have to offer.

Thanks

I tend to make mine from a cider kit (don\'t forget, here in the UK, if it\'s not fermented, then it\'s just apple juice, whatever state it\'s in i.e. whether it\'s clear or cloudy).
Yes I do tend to just make the kit up, but add some extra sugar so that the gravity is about 1080 to 1090. Plus a bit of tannin (about 1 tsp).
1 pack of wine or cider yeast is enough to ferment it in about 7 to 8 days.
I also always use finings to clear it as I\'ve found it\'s a hell of a lot easier to get a \"burp\"/overboil from the smart still if you don\'t make sure that it\'s as clear as possible.
I tend to run it (the cider), as well as other fruit wines and meads I make and then decide that they\'re not progressing as well as I\'d like. The resulting distillate then gets chucked into a carboy (which is now full i.e. 34 litres) and also contains about 5 packs of toasted oak \"chips\" (more like bloody sawdust if you ask me).
I\'ve got some more wines/meads and another cider kit (that needs brewing first obviously) and will then go through the still and I\'ll have to transfer it all to one of my 54 litre carboys when I\'ve remembered to send off for some stoppers for them.
The basic idea being to make it up, stopper it and then chuck it into the corner of the shed and forget about it. So I end up with \"Mixed fruit brandy\". To be honest, it\'s actually developing quite well, taste-wise, but it\'s still a bit rough.
do like the idea of the \"cryogenic\" process to increase the strength though, I just don\'t have the room to try anything like that......

I use 24 ounce containers to freeze it. It turns out like slush, but when spun all I have left is ice chips. My room is limited as well. I generally do 8 containers at a time. I\'m going to try it with my first mash for distilling. From what I\'ve read, distilling tends to strip flavors while freezing tends to concentrate them. I\'ve got a cider press coming can\'t wait to make a batch of Perry.

I use 24 ounce containers to freeze it. It turns out like slush, but when spun all I have left is ice chips. My room is limited as well. I generally do 8 containers at a time. I'm going to try it with my first mash for distilling. From what I've read, distilling tends to strip flavors while freezing tends to concentrate them. I've got a cider press coming can't wait to make a batch of Perry.

Well it certain sounds like something to think about trying.... I'd have to find a decent quality salad spinner though as I reckon that one of the cheapo plastic ones wouldn't provide much of a service before falling apart.....
Yes, you're right about distilling stripping the flavours out...... I just distil mine to try for at least a little authenticity. doing it the way you suggest would be like inventing a "new" product. I doubt that it preserves or concentrates the flavour though, just that it retains more of the flavour than distilling it does - well that\'s my current "train of thought" anyway. It would just be that you don't strip as much flavour out of it i.e. the amount of flavour left in the ice chips/crystals wouldn't be as much, as you get left in the still waste after a batch has been run.
I'd guess that you'd end up with something like a very strong "alcopop". If you then allowed the ice chips/crystals to thaw, and had a taste, I'd bet that it would still taste "appley", but you'd have kept a lot more of it in the extracted liquor....
Dunno about having enough money to spend on a decent cider press, but I noticed that the local HBS now keeps perry kits as well as the ubiquitous cider kits - presumably since the likes of Magners started selling it.
I delivered a couple of pallets of perry, don't recall the name of it, but it was made in Sweden. Then found the same stuff in the local supermarket. Very sweet, but very drinkable, especially well chilled, on a nice warm summer evening......
I'm gonna suggest your idea about the salad spinner to a friend of mine though. He does a freeze/thaw process to increase the strength of some of his meads......

I put 11 Ltrs of apple juice In my fermenter, any make I just go for the cheapest at the time, add 5kg of sugar. Top up to 22 ltr and add a beer yeast. The result is a sparkling creamy sweet cider.