Turbo Cider Project

What is Turbo Cider?

Turbo Cider is basically homemade Cider fermented from Apple juices that are available from Supermarkets. The "Turbo" does not mean that it is blindingly strong (although it can be), it refers to the fact that it is easy and quick to make.

The basic ingredients are Juice and Yeast, although a few other additions will make a better Cider. You will also need a few items of brewing equipment but nothing that will break the bank. A Demi John or 5L water bottle, an airlock of some description, some tubing for siphoning and something to store the finished Cider in. You will also need to sterilise all of your equipment.

Fermenting Cider in this way will create a Cider that is very dry, so you may also need to consider sweetening. This is discussed further below.

The Ingredients

There are many different recipes that you can use, so this is just a suggestion. Any combination of juices will work as long as they are 100% juice and contain no preservatives. The recipe below uses a mix of Apple and Cranberry to give the Cider a balanced flavour. These juices will lack the Tannins that you would normally find in the fruit skins, so we need to add some back in. You can buy powdered Tanning for this purpose but you can also use strong tea, which is much more readily available.

Yeast and Yeast Nutrient can be sourced from Wilko's if you have one local or any other Homebrew supplier

Recipe	Measure
Batch Volume	5 Litres
Apple Juice (100%)	4 Litres
Cranberry Juice	1Litre
Cup of Strong Tea	4 Tea Bags
Wine or Cider Yeast	1 Packet
Yeast Nutrient	1 heaped Tsp
Fermentation Temperature	20C

Method

This basic method makes a bone dry cider but is very easy to follow. If you like your Cider a little sweeter then you will need to sweeten the finished Cider. See the section below on Sweetening, as this has some considerations.

Sterilising everything that will come into contact with the Cider. Failure to do this will result in infection and a bad tasting finished product. The best way to do this is by using a dedicated Hombrewing sanitiser but you can use bleach as long as you rinse it well.
Make 1 cup of very strong tea with the 4 tea bags but do not add to the Demi John just yet or it will crack from the heat.
Add about 3 Litres of Apple Juice and most of the Cranberry juice to the Demi John. You want it about 2/3 full to start with.
Add the Tea.
Add 1 heaped teaspoon of yeast nutrient.
Sprinkle in the yeast and let it stand for a while (10 min) to re-hydrate.
Keep the remaining juice to one side as we will add this on day 3. Adding it all on day one will create a volcano and an almighty mess.
Fit an airlock and place somewhere warm for 3 days. In a few hours you should start to see activity as fermentation gets under way. It can get quite vigorous, which is why we have not filled the Demi John completely.
On Day 3 add the remaining Juice. You will see from the picture below that this still overflowed through the airlock, so take care.
Now leave to ferment for 7-10 days.
After around 10 days you will notice that the airlock no longer bubble. The Cider will have looked quite murky during fermentation but this should now be starting to clear. You will probably need to leave the Cider for another 2 weeks to completely clear but this is personal preference. If you like it cloudy, its ready.
Decant the completed Cider into another sterlised container to remove from the yeast.
Bottle with around 1/2 a teaspoon of sugar per pint.
Store somewhere warm for 4 days and then somewhere cool to condition / clear (Min 1 week).

How to Sweeten Turbo Cider

The method that you use to sweeten Turbo Cider depends on the equipment that you have available. You cannot just add more sugar at the time of bottling as this will continue to ferment and cause your bottles to explode. There are two main ways of sweetening Cider without creating bottle bombs and these are discussed below.

Use Non Fermentable Sugar

Splenda or similar artificial sweeteners can be added directly to the Cider as these are non fermentable. You will still need to add 1/2 teaspoon of normal sugar per pint for conditioning, if you want a fizzy Cider. This is the easiest way to sweeten your Cider but if you are sensitive to the artificial flavours that these sweeteners can add then this may not be suitable for you.

Prevent Further Fermentation

You can add Potassium Sorbate and Sodium Metabisulphate to prevent further Fermentation. Wilko's sell a pre-mixed powder called "Stabaliser", which contains these chemicals and works well. In this case, you can then add normal sugar to sweeten the Cider. The amount of sugar to add is a personal taste thing so trial and error is the best way.

Fill a small glass with an exact amount of your cider in ml (say 50ml or 100ml) and then add small amounts of measured sugar until you are happy with the level of sweetness. For me, I found that around 3/4 tsp per 100ml produced a medium cider. Extrapolating this so that 0.75 X 10 = 7.5 tsp per litre, then 7.5 X 4.5 Litres = 35 tsp per gallon. I ended up adding around 30 tsp of sugar for sweetening 1 Demi John of Cider and this worked well. One teaspoon is around 4g of sugar, so you can measure this in one go as 120g.

The drawback with this method is that you will no longer be able to bottle condition the Cider, to get a fizz. The Cider will either have to be consumed still or force carbonated using C02.