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Heirloom Cider Press
Check out my latest cider making adventure/project.
A buddy of mine got a hold of this old grape press. He picked several pounds of apples last weekend and we are going to try to put this press into service to press some fresh cider for ourselves.
Should be interesting.
Check out this link with some pictures of the press.
What do you think?
That's awesome man. Do you think the press will be able to hold up to the added stress of pressing apples rather than grapes?
I wanted to do a couple of batches of cider this year. There's a local guy that sells cider that is pressed just down the road from my house. I don't have a barrel or anything (which is how most of the PA locals do it), so I was just going to make a 5 gallon batch with no sugar added, boil for 15 minutes to sterilize, and throw in champagne yeast. I was also going to make a batch with enough sugar added to bring the OG up to about 1.150 and again, use champagne yeast. I did a half gallon last year with no added sugar and it turned out really good.
What do you think would be better, corn sugar or table sugar? I know corn sugar is more fermentable, but too much in beer will lead to "cidery" flavors, which obviously isn't a problem when making cider. Table sugar will add residual sweetness, which might actually be a good thing. What does everyone else use?
That's badass, man. Let us know how it works out for ya. There's an article in the most recent BYO on how to build an apple press and it got me thinking. It would be simple enough to make but then again I'd have to get off my ass first...
Looks like my grape press my Dad made. Never tried apples with it. Are you going to grind them up first?
Decypher4:
Corn sugar and table sugar are still both 100% fermentable, you'll get the same result with either. So, IMO there is no difference.
And the cider flavor issue from too much sugar is a complete mis-understanding. At one point in homebrewings history that likely was the case. But during that time people were also using dry yeasts that routined were contaminated at the source. Extract was generally months and months old and oxidized. And sanitizers were very limited.
Today we enjoy a huge range od extremely fresh ingredients. Even some LHBSs that are in really small markets have fresher stuff that what was available evne just 10 years ago.
So cidery flavors from too much simple sugar was lkely due to poor yeast health. Now that we have places like White Labs and Wyeast supplying highly pure and really fresh yeast, we NEED to stop perpetuating the cider-sugar connection. Many Belgian styles use pounds of raw sugars and those beers aren't cidery. I have used up to two pounds of table sugar in a light American ale in the past and had zero cider flavors. I have even tried to make it happen with normal brewing techniques.
So sugar away, no worries about off flavors there.
Andrew:
We will be coring, then french frying the apples. The dicing the "fries".
Thanks for the great response brewchez. I've always believed the sugar-cider myth from what I've read in various publications. But knowing that you have actually experimented to disprove that myth puts my mind at ease. Thank you.
I was also always under the impression that table sugar had some unfermentables in it, not sure where that came from, so thank you for clearing that up for me as well.
I supposed I will just use a bunch of table sugar and see how it turns out.
Decypher4 wrote:
Thanks for the great response brewchez. I've always believed the sugar-cider myth from what I've read in various publications. But knowing that you have actually experimented to disprove that myth puts my mind at ease. Thank you.
I was also always under the impression that table sugar had some unfermentables in it, not sure where that came from, so thank you for clearing that up for me as well.
I supposed I will just use a bunch of table sugar and see how it turns out.
Just to be clear. Make sure you pitch an appropriate amount of healthy yeast with proper nutrients.
Staying clear of off flavors with sugars or malts always comes down to healthy yeast.
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