Fletch78

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When is it done? My cider has dropped from 1.057 to 1.010 in 5 days. Based on reading the expert thread experiments etc at the top of the page, letting it go any more is going to give it less of a cider "Woodchuck" feel and more of a wine feel, which is what I don't want. The flavor right now is exactly what I want.

It's a 1 gallon batch I was going to bottle to 1 L flip-tops to carbonate and age with some oak for a while.

The age old conundrum... how to stop fermentation early and carbonate without a keg.

The only thing I can think of is to bottle them all as-is, and wait a day or two at a time and keep checking one of the flip-tops until it's carbonated, then keep them in the refrigerator and hope they don't blow up.

Had I used a beer yeast instead of Red Star and EC1118, I'd feel more comfortable with this method. In my experience, these yeasts don't take kindly to assassination attempts, much like hosing down a hornets nest, it really seems to just piss them off.

CandleWineProject

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sweet carbed cider is asking for bottle bombs.

It sounds to me like you know when it is done, but you refuse to listen because you don't want it dry. It tastes so much better when it has had a chance to age instead of making it and drinking it all within a month. You probably added sugar to the batch, too.

Fletch78

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Negative, no sugar added. 1.057 was the gravity of the no-additive cider from Earth Fare.

Fletch78

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Last time I just used splenda and primed the dry cider, but SWMBO doesn't like that. I thought it was great.

Fletch78

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Here's what's going to happen. I'm going to bottle them today and monitor one after 24 hours (based on the speed at which it's fermenting right now, that should be more than enough time) to see it's carbonated, then I'm going to pasteurize the bottles for 5 hours at 130 F (less risk of explosion than at high temps) and then in 6 months with an oak cube in each one, it's going to be fantastic. You'll see... I'll show you... candle man...

and when/if I fail.. it will be SWMBO's fault. Not mine. It's only a gallon, I only got it for the glass jug.. so it's a good opportunity to experiment. yes yes?

Yooper

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You're going to bottle early on purpose, simmer than at 130 degrees, age them on oak for 6 months? Ok. Let us know how that works out. If you don't have bottle bombs or an oaky beverage, I'll be surprised. I hope I'm wrong.

I've aged wine and beer on oak cubes for a couple of weeks, and it took many months for the flavor to age out to something drinkable. I used one ounce for 3 gallons. I'm not sure how many cubes that is. You may wish you put the oak in first, then bottled it after it was removed from the oak.

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Fletch78

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1 cube per liter bottle, which equates to 4 cubes per gallon. A 3 oz package of oak cubes from Midwest is about 150 cubes. I was thinking about doing something crazy and adding 2 per bottle. Possibly spraying them with WD40 first.

Fletch78

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Since we've been talking about it, the sample has already dropped to 1.009.

Fletch78

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..........................

Teromous

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WD40? I think I'm missing something here...