First time cider maker.

So my wife had a gluten allergy and cannot drink beer. We have made wine a couple of times. And now she has expressed some interest in making cider. Since it isn’t peak cider season. But she was looking for something to drink when we go camping this summer. I was wondering if I could use the frozen apple juice concentration and what a good recipe would be?  Also any tips and tricks to cider making I was planing on using the champaign yeast since I know that it contains no gluten. Any other a divorce would be appreciated.

I’ve had cider made from tree top a few times. I believe they simply mixed it per the directions and added cider yeast. It was good.

well then we’re not going to help you!  :wink:

you can make fairly tasty cider with concentrate, or cheap apple juice from the grocery store, a few bucks a gallon. 
I like to do ciders with other fruits and 3711 when it’s not straight cider fermenting season (winter in my unheated guestroom)  Other yeasts I’ve used with success are 3726, 002, 1728, and a few weizen yeasts, with those last ones more troublesome in terms of sulfur than the others.

Some Farm Cold store Cider to sell during the summer and pre harvest season.  IF you look around you may be able to find Cider pressed on a farm.

Cheers,
Jeff

Yeah, orchards often/usually freeze some juice to see in the off-season, so you can still pick up some good stuff if you try.  That’s what I would recommend.  Or, at your grocery store, seek out the Simply Apple brand, which is real juice (hazy brown with dark stuff at the bottom) without preservatives.  The preservatives in other apple juices from concentrate can slow or prevent proper fermentation… and real juice tastes a lot better anyway, and isn’t terribly expensive.

Be aware that no matter what yeast you use, fermentation will take at least a month if not two months.  Cider ferments a lot more slowly than beer.  So if you want to drink it this summer… it will be very late summer even if you start right away.

Ive never actually had that problem.  Usually mine are done in 2 weeks, of course we dont drink it for months but ill have to keep an eye on the next batch.

If you keg, I suppose that’s fine.  If you bottle… watch out for bottle bombs!

In all cases the cider has finished sub 1.000.  I do tend to use wine yeasts tho

Mine always finishes at about 0.992-0.994.  Hence, if I bottled at 1.000, I’d have plenty of carbonation, if not bombs.  YMMV.

So I meant advice lol not divorce lol. Phone auto corrected. I was going to bottle mine. So do I add priming sugar or just bottle it when it hits 1.000 and let it go. Also for bottling do I have to factor any back sweeteners in as well.

you can’t bottle condition AND backsweeten. you can backsweeten, stabilize, carb in a keg and then bottle. or you can bottle condition and get dry cider. any sugar you add will be eaten by the yeast until it’s gone.

Haven’t tried it myself, but this could be an option to backsweeten and bottle… http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

Splenda?

I’ve done Splenda before.  Nasty.  Don’t do it, unless you believe yourself to be immune to the wrath of Splenda.  Now, lactose or maltodextrin…

Lactose and maltodextrine is a different kind of sweet. I’ve never tried splenda, just a shot in the dark.

This is my first go at cider! Plum Cider actually…I picked 20 or 30 lbs of delicious cling plums in June, pitted, quartered and froze with skins on. I just started brewing too. Just kegged a nut brown ale and really like it! So I am quite a Rookie! Here is what I have done. Two 3/4 gallon batches. More apple juice than plumb in each. I have one batch with clover honey and cooked the plumbs at 150 for 40 minutes. It got pretty thick. I added the apple juice and a little brown sugar. OG was reading 1.100 but the mix was foamy, so it’s probably less?

Is that to much sugar? Should I dilute it? I’m just experimenting, but as I research more, I’m thinking I am heading for trouble…

Second batch is heated at 150 for 5 minutes, brown sugar and apple juice. OG is 1.084. No honey.

I added pectin enzyme to both.

My yeast (which I haven’t pitched) was k1-V1116. I was told it would be to dry. What yeast should I use? Any advise for the Rookie?

Ps I found this recipe on line and decided to mix it up and experiment a little.

Sounds like you are well on your way to some tasty plum cider and cyser!  Both will ferment semi-dry and taste way more like wine than say Woodchuck or Angry Orchard or whatever.  Just so you know.  When you add any sugars it turns your cider into a stronger more wine-like beverage.  Fermentation will take a couple of months to finish.  Feel free to rack often maybe once a week for the first month in order to get a sweeter cider and to aid with clarity.  After you are sure fermentation is done… wait at least another week if not two before bottling or you could get bottle bombs.  Also need to condition with sorbate and sulfite at bottling for the same reason.

most any yeast you would pick is likely to go dry at the gravity range you’ve mentioned.  I like 1116 a lot in the summer.

there are some sweet mead yeasts that have a good shot of stopping that early, depending on your actual gravity and how you treat the yeast, but first it would help if you state what your goal is.  Are you looking for a fairly low alcohol beverage?  Something wine-like?  How sweet do you want it?  How soon do you want to be drinking it?

You might want to consider pectic enzyme if you heated your juice, otherwise you have the potential for some pectic haze.

So I tried my first batch today. Purchased the frozen apple juice concentrate and added water till I had a gravity of 1.056. Pitched a full packet of rehydrated Champaign yeast. So how long should I assume that this will take? I was going to wait a week and start takin gravity readings or should I wait longer than that.