A question for you home brewers

I gotta come clean, there might be more than one question. 

I'm going to brew some hard cider, following THIS VIDEO as my tutorial.  My questions are:

1 - 1:30 - what is this air lock thing? Sound like this can be omitted and a balloon stretched across the mouth of the jug instead? Is there a down side to using the balloon?

2 - He said he let it sit for 6 weeks. How do I know when it's done fermenting? I've seen some videos say to let it sit for 7 days. What gives? 

3 - He brewed (fermented) the cider in the gallon jug the juice came in, then siphoned it into a bucket. From there he poured it into bottles. Why not just pour it from the gallong jug into the bottles? Maybe pouring it into the bucket facilitated mixing in the concentrated juice?

I think that's it. I appreciate any answers you might have, and any tips/hints any of you experienced brewers might have. 

1. A better air lock than a ballon would be a piece of tube from the bottle top into a pail of water. Air must be allowed to escape but not be allowed in. Also if fermentation is very vigorous, there will be a lot of sticky foam escaping the fermenter.  If it were to blow the balloon off you could lose all your work

2. Fermentation time is variable based on temperature, yeast strain, amount of available sugars ect.. Finding specific gravity is the best way to know when it is done

3. Yeast will drop from suspension in the fermenter. Siphoning from the top leaves that bitter, murky layer undisturbed. You really don't want to consume  much of the yeast. It will have a very negative impact on flavor

Airlocks are super cheap (like .99cents at any homebrew shop) and help keep the nasty bacteria out.    Yes, you can reuse them.

Typically fermentation is complete within a week, but aging does help clean up and residual sugars/yeast.

I would recommend a month, then put the container in the freezer for a few hours (all but freeze) and rack off again.  This will give you the clearest hard cider.

DrBoost said:

I gotta come clean, there might be more than one question. 

I'm going to brew some hard cider, following THIS VIDEO as my tutorial.  My questions are:

1 - 1:30 - what is this air lock thing? Sound like this can be omitted and a balloon stretched across the mouth of the jug instead? Is there a down side to using the balloon?

The goal is to keep the carbon dioxide the yeast produce in, and oxygen, wild yeasts, and bacteria out. A balloon might work, but it could also burst. And if it bursts, the balloon could well be full of foam. It's surprising how much gas will come out; I had an airlock blow off a gallon jug. I spotted it fairly soon and replaced it - no harm done, at least that time.

2 - He said he let it sit for 6 weeks. How do I know when it's done fermenting? I've seen some videos say to let it sit for 7 days. What gives? 

Depends on the yeast and temperature. A good rule is to make sure the air lock isn't bubbling and all the yeast has settled to the bottom - then give it a few more days.

And also, beer often needs to sit for 2-3 weeks at room temperature after bottling - you'll get a pretty weird taste if you drink it too soon.

3 - He brewed (fermented) the cider in the gallon jug the juice came in, then siphoned it into a bucket. From there he poured it into bottles. Why not just pour it from the gallong jug into the bottles? Maybe pouring it into the bucket facilitated mixing in the concentrated juice?

I used a siphon that doesn't reach quite to the bottom of the container to get the beer into bottles. The goal, as others noted, is to avoid getting that layer of yeast into the bottles.

Definitely don't use a balloon, cleanliness is next to godliness in brewing, a balloon will fail you in cleanliness as a starting point and also in stretch, losing elasticity and being a potential failure point.

With a cider, definitely check specific gravity to know when it's done fermentation. Apples will generally have some natural yeast that will up the potential ABV. Also keep it cold after bottling to prevent re-fermentation, drinking fresh is also strongly recommended. 

Siphoning is about reducing the yeast that enters the finished product and it makes bottling more controllable with less mess. Often times the yeast from ciders will actually change in variety from the initial yeast pitched due to the natural yeast found on the surface of some apples. Because of this many brewers and fermenters will want to save and grow the culture for wild sours or future ciders. You don't want this yeast anywhere near yeast, or equipment or production that you'd utilize for any types of beer other than wild sours. If you try to make a stout even in the same building as some of these yeast, you'll end up with an infected batch that is just a drain pour. It's awesome stuff in the right situation and terrifying when near anything else. 

This thread brings back fond memories.  Maybe I'll brew another batch this winter. 

Yah, proper airlock is cheap.  Not as cheap as a balloon perhaps, but still cheap.  And arguably better.

Fun fact:  a batch at maximum yeast activity can produce a fair bit of gas.  A couple days after dropping the yeast, my airlock was making a bit of noise and it was pushing brown froth up into the airlock tube.  The next morning, there were lovely brown spots on the ceiling and adjacent walls. 

I have 9-foot ceilings.

Basically, what you are doing is letting a bunch of bacteria ( eukaryotic organisms actually)  eat all your juice so you can drink the resulting  cesspool. You want to keep that cesspool as controlled as possible and just the way the little buggers like it.

The airlock works the same way as the P trap on a sink or toilet and relies on the same water cap to keep gasses where you want them. The water trap does two things, since CO2 is heavier than air, it keeps a very light layer of CO2 trapped on top of the fermenting juice so as to prevent oxidation of the juice.

The traps are also traditionally spiked with sulfate so as to keep the water sterile so that bugs don't get in the water and jump to the juice.

Secondly, the traps are nice because they blow bubbles when the juice is fermenting. When the bubbles stop, your fermenting is pretty much done.

A third thing the water trap can do is more effectively aim the erupting volcano of foam at the ceiling should your fermentation get a bit rowdy.

Traditionally, when the bubbles are done, you transfer the fermented juice to an intermediate storage container to finish the fermentation. You do this with a J shaped siphon  that leaves most of the old yeast on the bottom of the first fermenting vessel. Yeast layer on the bottom is silt, so will disturb easily. You don't want much yeast in the second fermentation because yeast is cannibalistic and when it runs out of sugar to eat it eats it's own kind and makes bad tasting  poo and piss. You don't want that you just want that sweet sugar based waste.

Once the juice is fully fermented ( or before if you like sweet cider) you can once again carefully  transfer the  product using the J siphon so as to leave the secondary layer of tired and dead yeast on the bottom. If you add a bit more sugar or if the fermentation is not complete, you trap CO2 in the bottle and have a carbonated beverage. Or a lot of bottles exploding. It is a fine line.

If you create carbonation in the bottle you will get sediment on the bottom of the bottle and best way to deal with that is to carefully pour the drink into a glass.

Be sure to get juice that doesn't have any preservatives in it. 

Honestly, cider is pretty easy and fun. You can add some sugar to the juice before you ferment to jack the ABV up. More yeast food = more booze.

I'd for sure get an actual airlock, and a hydrometer ($8 for the one I use) at least. You'll need the hydrometer to measure residual sugars, which will tell you when fermentation is done. 

Edit: get some Star-San too. Any homebrew store will have it. It's what's you want to use to sanitize EVERYTHING you use.

Thanks all. 
Has anyone watched the video? Does it seem like a good way to go? I'll post when I do my first batch.

In reply to DrBoost :

I left over 3 bushel of apples this year on my trees because we had more fruit than we could handle. On top of that more than 1/3 of my crop landed on my driveway during wind storms. Nice apples split open by impact. Seemed a shame to shovel them up and fill my yard waste barrel to be hauled off. 
Between the two sources I'm guess 25-35 bushels of apples went to waste. 
Hard cider sounds like a fun solution. 

NOHOME said:

Once the juice is fully fermented ( or before if you like sweet cider)

Important part right here.  I've had friends ferment their own cider and the first couple batches its dry as hell and has almost no apple flavor.  The yeast does a phenomenal job of eating the sugar and somehow also gets the flavor molecules as well.  

You might look into adding flavor back in post fermentation.

Mr_Asa said:

NOHOME said:

Once the juice is fully fermented ( or before if you like sweet cider)

Important part right here.  I've had friends ferment their own cider and the first couple batches its dry as hell and has almost no apple flavor.  The yeast does a phenomenal job of eating the sugar and somehow also gets the flavor molecules as well.  

You might look into adding flavor back in post fermentation.

In the video, he adds a can of apple juice concentrate to the batch, then bottles it. After a few days enough sugar has been farted out to carbonated, but still sweet. 

I brewed beer for about 15 years, did cider a few times along the way, so here are some notes.

Flip top bottles will be more expensive, but may be the way to go if you don't want to have to buy a capper and bottle caps. They are usually a little larger as well.

5 gallons is 640 fluid ounces, so you can figure out how many bottles you need with a bit of math if you make a larger batch.

Yeast nutrient is a great idea for ciders, he is using champagne yeast which will eat all the sugar, which if you don't backsweeten at the end will be super dry.  Ale yeasts can also work and will impart different flavors.

I always did a blow off tube instead of an airlock to start, if you have a super vigorous batch it can clog your airlock and blow it off. As others have said, there will be a lot of gas production, I wouldn't trust a balloon.

This might be a good time of year to see about getting natural cider if you are in an apple producing area, my homebrew shops always had a hook up.

Sanitization is also key, I loved using Star San, it gets foamy and is easy to dunk bottles, equipment, and other stuff in it (it's sold as a super concentrate). Spray bottles are also great.

IF you have an apple source already (FrenchyD), you need to crush them down to get the juice out. You can rent a crusher at a homebrew shop if you don't have one already.  In many cases, you actually don't have to buy yeast either, as the apples should have some already on them, but it may be good to add some commercial as you never know what natural yeast flavors you might get.  I'd try a natural and a commercial version myself. Also pectin tablets will help break down cell walls and release more juice, I believe that was mentioned in the video.

You can also add fruit as your sweenener, blackberries and raspberry juice work nicely.

Here's a nice link to avoid bottle math.

There are fellow cider makers here - figures.  The video is nothing at all like what we do - ferment out fully in a second carboy after initial fermentation, then force carbonate with CO2 and bottle it, but it's easy and will probably be a good starting point.

There's a on orchard/cidery near here that will sell 5 gal carboys of unfiltered raw cider that make a better starting point than bottled juice.  No preservatives, which is important.  Might be worth checking into.  Yes, you do need an airlock, and a hydrometer is a good idea, and after about four batches you'll find that you have a cabinet full of stuff and supplies.

Somebody higher up in the thread said "drink fresh" and I'd say not always.  I have some five year old cider in the fridge that we almost tossed instead of bottling and it's gotten much better with age.  I had some 20 year old stuff that we misplaced that only got better with age.  YMMV.

1.)  I use a bubbler type of air lock; fill it half way with water and the air bubbles out but won't allow any in, like a check valve.

2.)  Making beer, I leave it in the 5 gallon bottle for longer, this allows more particles in suspension to fall to the bottom making a cleaner product.

3.)  There's always some yeast or sugar left over, IIRC that gets eaten up once bottled which creates the carbonation.

My responses are only applicable to beer, never made cider.

Dan

Thanks all!!!