scottywags

Recipes 

Gonna try and blend a couple of the cider recipes that I've seen on here that I like and see how it goes.
I've brewed 3 1 gallon batches so far and am really new to this but you gotta start somewhere.
Anyways here is what I'm doing on this one:

5 gallons of WhiteHouse 100% Apple Juice
1 1/2 pounds of Brown Sugar
1 Pound Table Sugar
1/2 Pound Malto Dextrine
1 Package Lalvin EC-1118 Yeast
2 Quarts "Oat Milk" (borrowed from Daze...Thanks for the recipe)

After 1 week 3 bags of thawed blackberries.

After liquifying all the sugar and malto I will add all to the carboy with the Juice and yeast then airlock it and wait a week then add 3 bags of the thawed Blackberries. Then let sit for another 3 weeks.
I'm hoping to get a slightly sweet blackberry flavored cider with a nice smooth texture.
This should be in the carboy by the end of day!

scottywags

Recipes 

Alright everybody is in the carboy except the maltodextrin and 1/2 gallon of the cider, I wanted to leave room for the blackberries that I'll add in a week. And after reading more on the malto...it seems I can add that at a later time as well if I wish. But for now I want to see how the oat milk does.
I tried to follow Daze's recipe on how he made the oat milk but that turned out to be a disaster for me. So I just cooked the oatmeal then threw it in the blender and let it run for a while. Then strained that through a mesh bag that drained into some cheese cloth then added about a cup of water and boiled for 30 minutes. Still a PIA so hopefully it'll be worth it.

Hydrometer reading is at 1.065

I'll be adding the Blackberries in about a week and I'll take another reading then.

For now...this is how she sits:

scottywags

Recipes 

I just took a hydro reading and it came in at 1.016 taste is pretty good, but I'm trying to figure a way to add the blackberries in a sterile fashion to the primary.
Any suggestions?

Daze

Recipes 

What went wrong???

__________________
- "It's all about time. You can't rush perfection. Time TIME TIME!!! You either need to pay on the front end or the rear. If the batch ferments out fast you need to secondary age or bottle age it. If it ferments out slow... months not weeks, then you don't have to age it nearly as long to get good flavors. Either way time is the key when making ciders and wines."

scottywags

Recipes 

I roasted the oats (right before I read that you would probably skip this step next time..oh well) after roasting I added 2 cups of the oats to the 6 cups of boiling water. I then tried to strain through a piece of cheesecloth resting in a stainer. But to get any significant amount of "milk" you had to squeeze the cloth to help extract the milk, but by the time it cooled down enough for me to squeeze it turns into glue.

So today I added the 3 pounds of blackberries that had been thawed over night. I just cleaned and sanitized a pitcher and poured all of the in then removed the stopper and added them to the primary. I only dropped about 5 or 6 whole berries on the ground...everything else made it into the primary perfectly.

Here she sits, bubbling away:

Daze

Recipes 

thats my bad, when I made mine I poured it through a sieve before I strained it with a cloth. As I was putting it through the sieve I had to add a little water to it to get the "milk" to separate from the solids. I will go back and change my directions to include that. Sorry

__________________
- "It's all about time. You can't rush perfection. Time TIME TIME!!! You either need to pay on the front end or the rear. If the batch ferments out fast you need to secondary age or bottle age it. If it ferments out slow... months not weeks, then you don't have to age it nearly as long to get good flavors. Either way time is the key when making ciders and wines."

scottywags

Recipes 

Hey no problem...I really liked and got A LOT more when I just cooked then blended then strained.

Daze

Recipes 

did the oat milk you made in the blender produce much sediment?? also what was your oat milk to cider ratio. I added 1 quart of "milk" to 3 quarts of cider to make 1 gallon in my recipe.

__________________
- "It's all about time. You can't rush perfection. Time TIME TIME!!! You either need to pay on the front end or the rear. If the batch ferments out fast you need to secondary age or bottle age it. If it ferments out slow... months not weeks, then you don't have to age it nearly as long to get good flavors. Either way time is the key when making ciders and wines."

scottywags

Recipes 

By sediment your referring to the stuff at the bottom of the carboy I assume. It doesn't seem to be much more than when I've made cider in the past. It has only been in there for 1 week, I'll post a pic once I rack it over.
To be honest I really didn't measure how much I put in, but if I were to guess I would say 3-4 cups.

scottywags

Recipes 

An update to this post.....Hmmm, kind of embarrassed here....I stuck this in a closet and had forgotten about it until today when cleaning that back room.

This has been sitting in the closet since March and it's now Dec! That's almost 9 months!

There does not seem to be any mildew or anything weird about the rasberries still sitting on top...it really looks just like it did when I stuck it in the closet back in March....Should I rack this over and see if it's any good? What, if anything can I do...or is this probably gonna be really good?