Any (expat) Indonesian members here?

[Indobrew]

Hi guys,

While time is on our hands and going out to enjoy good food and drinks is limited in this period, I take fun in learning new skills. Brewing was on my list and I wanted to give it a quick and dirty first try with store bought apple juice. I will open a separate topic about it.

I am a Dutch guy living in Indonesia for 15 years and hope to learn especially from people that have experience with brewing in the tropics. I hope it will be as much fun as I enjoy cooking and since alcohol is expensive here, I might even save some money in the long run.

 

[Ozric13]

Hi

I live in Jakarta and brew apple cider.

If you want any more info ping me back.

Cheers Alan

 

[Indobrew]

Hi Alan, (the same who leaves reviews on Tokopedia's Java Brewcraft?). I am very interested to know about your way of making apple cider. I have not been able to make it and have been brewing pineapple and yali pear beer/wine so far. Would you mind to share your recipe/method?

 

[Ozric13]

Hi

Yes it is the same Alan from Tokopedia

I got a few items from Brewcraft "yeast" the rest just picked up on Tokopedia

Being English my love is for cider is a must, but was very dissatisfied of what you can get in Indo being just Albens from Bali and imported Strongbow, so I decided to make my own to my own liking which is dry not sweet, which they tend to be here.

I had made a few wines back in the UK many years ago, so thought it can't be that hard.

I looked into using fresh apples but the prices made that not viable so looked into Apple juice, I discovered that most Indo juices contains water, sweeteners and preservative, so the yeast would just die in that.

Then I found a few imported brands which are 100% juice, Pfanner and Happy Day, see pics.

For the carboy I just used the plastic containers which were safe for food and drink, the square one is from Ace Hardware and holds 12 Litres

My recipe is easy, for 5 litres of juice I add 1 litre of water, I like it dry so only add 250-500 grams of sugar, for sweeter upto 1 kilo of sugar can be added.

Yeast Well I've been using champagne yeast, so it brews so there is no sugar left, the alcohol can get quite high but its very dry which is my preferred taste, however with the alcohol being so high it can strip away a bit of the apple taste so it's more like an apple wine.

My first batch I did not filter perfectly so there was a tiny amount of yeast sediment in the bottom of each bottle, then I added a teaspoon of sugar and sealed the bottles, after 2 weeks, I had perfectly fizzy cider.

On my second batch I filtered 2 times as I wanted crystal clear cider, I then added the sugar as before, unfortunately because there was no yeast sediment in this second batch the sugar did nothing so I had flat cider not fizzy still damn nice though.

For my third attempt I'm going to use a cider yeast, I want something I can drink without getting too pissed as the alcohol should only be around 8-9%, plus I want to retain a bit more apple flavour.

Also you can see I had a go at making Strawberry wine too, that worked well as well

I hope that helps, ps can you confirm if its legal to make homebrew in Indo as I don't want to get into trouble, I'm not selling it, it's just for personal use.

Cheers

 

[GidiBali]

Nice work Al!!

 

[Ozric13]

Thanks GidiBali

Nice work Al!!

 

[Indobrew]

Hi Alan,

Thanks very much for the informative post. Very nice to read your experience which resembles mine a bit too. I also wanted to make a cider and thought I had found a supplier who claim they produce concentrate from 100% apple juice, without additives. It did not ferment though and fresh apples will cost too much indeed. That's when I started with champagne yeast and pineapples, following the plenty South African youtube videos about this. I have also gotten good results with Yali pears to make a sparkling. The strawberry looks great!

My rule of thumb is about 2 kg Yali pears of 3-4 local pineapples, 8-10 liters of water and 2 kg of sugar with half a pack of yeast. I have now ordered yeast nutrient to see if that improves the process and yield more alcohol with less sweetness. Perhaps you can use less sugar and still achieve high alcohol levels because the yeast gets more out of the apple juice. I also like a dry result.

I have recently received a refractometer because it is so easy to measure during the brew. How long do you normally ferment in the carboy and what do you mean by filtering? Do you actually use a filter or just transfer into a second fermentor to get rid of most yeast? I have also found that you really need some yeast in the bottle to get the fizz. With champagne yeast, I transferred into a second fermentor and then bottle to get some clarity. I have now used Red Star Premier Blanc which is really clean and clear but slow, sweet and 5% alchohol (hence the nutrients next batch).

I will definitely try to make a cider now with one of the brands you mentioned! Happy days is available for sure in Bali. In fact today is brew day again, so I will keep you posted. It looks like a lot of wine in the picture, but I am lazy and don't want to make a new brew every week. I also do not want to sell and only brew for myself and friends visiting. Because this is low alcohol and for private use, I don't think we will be in trouble, though Bali is probably a bit more liberal in that.