I was a border jumper again...3 states...scored 10 gal and found out the place I got it presses all year,so I have found my go to spot
Yes, but I hit a snag. I used real cider, I put it in the fridge for 48 hours to cold crash it, but it's still cloudy. The only thing that will clear it now is time or bottle it cloudy. I don't want to use any chemicals so...
Glad this thread popped up, was looking for some cider in the stores none to be seen here. Could be because summer ended Friday. Usually run champagne yeast and back sweeten 1/2 the batch with stevia priming sugar for the cardox. Might run a cider specific yeast this go round. Like mine cloudy dry and fizzy. We used to make hooch in my teens on the farm in Maine. All the jugs that started co2 gassing would get pulled off the shelf- they went in the basement with crude air locks. In a couple weeks you had a sweet yet fizzy cider with a bit of bite.
I kegged my 5 gallon batch yesterday with 3 cans of apple/raspberry concentrate plus one tablespoon of potassium air ate to prevent further fermentation. The yeast really settled out after a couple of weeks and all air lock activity stopped after 3 weeks. Tomorrow, first taste of fizzy 7% apple raspberry goodness.
I would love to hear more about this Lyle. How did it keep in the quart canning jars? Was it done working after 3 weeks? Where did you store the jars? Temperature in the storage area?
It kept fine in canning jars.. About 9 month before gone. Stored on shelves in basement I would guess probably 60° average.
Just got done bottling my two 3 gallons of cider.... the first one I went with backsweeten of regular apple concentrate and the other with strawberry kiwi concentrate. Both tasted good out of the bucket, hopefully I didn’t screw anything up...
Now a question, what makes cider different than beer at this stage? Beer you let go ahead and carbonize, but cider you want to stall out a certain stage...
If you added priming sugar it will carbonate in the bottles. If you added a bunch of natural sugars without killing the yeast you have a bunch of glass grenades
beer stops fermenting at a naturally sweet fg. Then you add a specific measured amount back for bottle carbing. The yeast stop eating when everything is back to that fg and fizzy. whoa! So the ajc is a bunch of sugar, the yeast are going to start eating that sugar and carbonate the cider but if you don’t stop them they will keep eating until a) they totally dry out the cider or b) the bottle explodes from too much pressure. this is tricky stuff. You can stop the yeast in the bottle with high heat or cold cold. You have to do this after carbonation but before explosion. Test bottles must be opened. The hot way is called bottle pasteurization. The cold way is tricky because if it ever warms up the yeast come back and the grenade might blow. ah yes, I do love kegs. im afraid you’ll need some help from the home brew forum guys. This is advanced stuff!
Well I tested out my two bottom of the bucket mason jars last night... Both were suprisingly good even as they were a bit warm... I'll probably go ahead (as long as I get off in a decent time tonight) try to pasturize most or all of the bottles tonight... On side note... The apple juice one was pretty darn clean tasting... While the strawberry/kiwi was good, just the flavors were different to the palet... Made it interesting...
Both my mason jars definitely had bulges on the seals, both depressurized upon opening. Had enough carbonization for me. The pop bottles are getting tight... in the 3 gallons I put in 2 canisters of juice in one and 1 1/2 in the other. Maybe I need to make one of your pressure reader thingies....
