Go Go! Auto-syphon! (also covering kit cider)
After awhile of waiting, forgetting, waiting some more and then being distracted by shiney things I’m back looking for an auto syphon for demi-john’s.
http://www.thehomebrewcompany.ie/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=722
I originally got the larger version for carboy’s and then after a bit of practice to figure out how it worked and delighting in simpleness and effectivness I went to use it on a demi-john… *thunk* oh, the hole is too small… DAMN. A bit of a search around and few places where selling a smaller one at the time so I gave up for awhile. Now I see the homebrew company have a wider selection of cider kits in stock, €15 for 40 pints of cider isn’t too bad! Although it needs a bit of added sugar so will probably be closer to €20.
Strawberry flavoured cider as well! Although the strawberryness is achived by a sachet of flavouring added afterwards. Perhaps not favourable by some I think I’ll be adding this to my list of purchases next month.
Right, lets do some maths (yay!) for the purposes of this we’ll ignore equipment and yeast costs and just deal with ingredients.
Aim: Make a decent tasting cider that’s cheap.
Methods: 1)Purchase and use a cider kit. 2)Purchase juice from a supermarket.
Kit
A kit will cost €15, for this we’ll use the Black Rock Cider kit from the homebrewcompany
They recommend the addition of 1kg brewing sugar and 300g of lactose so extra cost if you go down that route which we will;
Brewing sugar: €2.28
Lactose 500g : €3.99
The lactose is a bit more than we need but if you make a few ciders it will work out well, 5 brews and you’ll have used all your lactose. We’ll ignore that for now but economies of scale come in to play if you want to plan out 5 batches of cider, you’ll save on delivery costs rather than getting it on a per batch basis. Also equipment costs will average out once a few batches are made.
Delivery: €7
Total: €28.27
Total per pint (40 pints): 0.70c
Total per 500ml (22.5 liters): 0.63c
Figures are rounded a bit, more than likely it will work out at 75c per pint and 67c per 500ml. That’s pretty decent for a drop of cider! Of course this is all if you have some magically sanitising, free fermentation vessel and ignore any kind of evaporation/inexact serving sizes. Equipment costs will come in to play but like I said I’m choosing to ignore them for now until I have a good idea of a usability range of the cheaper plastic fermentors, i.e. you’ll use them for set number of fermentation and then recycle them.
Supermarket Ciders
So, Tesco/Lidl are the ones that are close to me and sell pressed, pure, cloudy apple juice. Tesco sell it at 1.27 per liter and Lidl are a bit kinder on the pocket at 99c a liter. Prices change of course! Tesco did sell at 99c around christmas 2009 but the price went up in the new year.
Direct comparison volume wise, 22.5 liters
Tesco: €28.575
Lidl: €22.275
Wow, okay there’s a bit of a difference there! 6 euro between the two and if you add in the same ingredients for sugar/lactose your hitting €28.55 for the Lidl prices. I’m going with the optimistic option of not paying for delivery for the sugar and lactose but source them at the same place as the juice. Now the thing is does it even need the added sugar and lactose? Perhaps not, it might only need lactose for a bit of sweetening or if you like your cider dry you could use raisins to introduce tannins and make the cider dryer rather than sweeter.
Conclusion
Money wise buying a kit is the same as if you bought the juice from a supermarket, a few cent in the difference if you get the juice for 99c per liter. The only differences might be taste depending on what apples the kit used and the appearance of the cider. The Tesco and Lidl juices are both cloudy so you’ll get a murky scrumpy style cider from them if used and a clear one from the kit. Clear juice is available but can vary from concentrated juice to just filtered juice, the only one I’ve been able to find has been concentrated juice. Not that I’m against concentrated juice, the kits appear to be concentrated juice.
Kits also come with a sachet of yeast negating that cost if your willing to use it. Quite often kits come with substandard yeasts or ones that may not be the freshest due to long shelf times with kits. The kit yeast is fine to use although use of another yeast can improve the taste in the finished cider. Any yeast can be used as a subsitute but for the first few batches it’s best to stick with a cider type yeast, Ale, Weiss and other yeasts can add intresting flavours if you decide to use them 
I hope to brew a large batch of cider using wyeast American Ale 1056, a Trappist and a Weiss yeast.