couple of cider questions
 

OK, I've got a couple more hard cider questions.

Do I have to go into a secondary? If I do it's going to slow me down by about 3 weeks. There is no way I can get by with buying another one right now.

Does anyone have a good recipe that is reminscent of hornsby's crisp apple? I've looked on the recipator and don't completely understand those recipes.

I'll not touch the question about secondaries, but what is it about the recipator recipes that you don't understand? I'd be happy to try and clear anything up for you.

-walker

I have several questions. I'm going to look at them tonight and send them your way.

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator?group=54&item=2292

Like this on for instance. It says its a 5 gallon recipe but it calls for 20 lbs of apple cider. What's up with that? How many gallons is that? Then he says he added apple flavoring. Is he talking about the frozen concentrated? then down at the bottom he says he boiled it with pumpkin pie spice. This is the first time I've seen him say anything about boiling or the spice. I just don't feel like I'm getting the whole picture.

i don't know off hand how dense apple cider is, but I believe 1 gallon of water weighs about 8lbs, so 20lbs of apple cider might be about 2.5 gallons.

I actually think he meant 20 quarts of apple cider (which is 5 gallons.)

apple flavoring is probably the extracted syrup that can be found at the local brewing shop. They sell all manner of flavorings; cherry, blueberry, apricot, apple, etc, etc.

and, yeah, that's strange about not mentioing the spices until the tasting notes. This is not a good recipe author, to say the least.

The problem with the recipator is that anyone can add to it. and, if that person leaves poor information or instructions, you have to sort it out or forget about the recipe.

that said, I would avoid this recipe.... this is the only time I have seen anyone mention BOILING the cider. that's supposedly a bad thing to do because of tannins or something.


-walker

Pectins I think...taken from a mead site:

"DO NOT BOIL. It could set the pectin in the fruit, making for a hazy mead that will take an extremely long time to clear."

Yeah, thanks for the advice, I'm probably going to go with something real close to corvus's recipe.