I started working on this today. Technically it's my second cyser. I did a 1 gallon wassil maybe 3 years ago.
Into the primary will go:
4 gallons unfiltered apple juice
7.5 lbs clover honey
1 lb brown sugar
1tsp yeast nutrient
White Labs Sweet Mead/Wine Yeast
I'm going to step up the quantities. So right now I've only got 1 gallon of juice in the fermentor with the yeast doing a quasi-starter. Tomorrow I'll step it up with another gallon on juice and 2.5lbs of honey. And I'll do that every week or two, depending on how the fermentation goes until I have it all in the primary.
After the primary appears finished, I'll rack it to a secondary and top it off with a black currant/apple juice mixture.
At this point I'm not sure if I'll add more honey to up the ABV to the yeast's limit of 15% or if I'll keep it around 11% so I can carb it if I want to.
I started pouring the second gallon of juice in tonight and got really paranoid about oxygenating and making vinegar if I keep doing this. So I poured in all the juice except the black currant and apple juice mixture that will go in the secondary. I also put the first 1.5lbs of honey in.
Right now the Plato = 15.5, which is what I expected.
I forgot how much I like the taste of honey and apple juice.
Oxygenation is good during the first few days of fermentation. Hightest has a good stickied article about nutrient addition schedule, which also includes oxygenation. I have also read about people keeping their fermentation open to air by simply putting a cloth over it.
I wasn't so much worried about it at this stage. I'm pretty sure not a whole lot of alcohol had been produced in the one day the yeast was in the first gallon of juice.
I was more worried about if I add a gallon every 2 weeks during the fermentation. That could entrain a lot of oxygen when there is much more alcohol present.
I'm still going to feed it honey every week or two.
Black Currant Cyser
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