smuth10

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CvilleKevin

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That'll work. Once you put it in the keg it will take about a week to get fully carbed. I like to use swing tops, because it is easy to snap the top on with one hand, right when they are full. If you are corking, it will help to have another set of hands so you dont lose any carb before the cork goes in. Also, I fill the bottles a little higher than normal because the CO2 will come back out of the cider until enough pressure builds up in the top of the bottle to keep any more from coming out. I leave about a half inch, just in case a get a re-ferment, but I've never had a problem filling from kegs so far.

smuth10

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Sounds good. Do I need to have the keg in the fridge for that week or is it OK to leave out once the cider is in the keg? Do the bottles need to stay in the fridge after corking? Sorry about all questions.

Sincerely, The New guy.

CvilleKevin

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The cider will carbonate faster if it is cold but you can do it at room temp. It takes about a week at room temp and a few days in the fridge. Just leave the gas on, with the regulator set to about 25psi.

The bottles should also be fine at room temp - however, I have to warn you that back when I was using champagne yeast, we used to drink it all within a few weeks of crashing, so I cant say for sure how long the EC1118 will stay stable. You might want to keep the 1118 batch in the keg and pull off bottles or growlers as needed, just to be safe. Used kegs are pretty cheap. I've saved lots of bottles that I pulled from kegs of ale yeast batches and kept them over six months at room temp with no problems.

chromedome

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so Kevin, what is your all time favorite cider recipe. its gotta be hard to pick 1 out of all your experiments?

CvilleKevin

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If I could make the same batch over and over, it would probably be Stayman and Winesap apples with S04 yeast and no sugar, crashed at about 1.008.

CvilleKevin

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Whew! – the last couple of days have been crazy. Sunday after dinner (six days after pitching the yeast), I checked the sg’s of the ciders. They were a lot further along than I expected. I’ve been keeping the basement at 68-72, which is about normal for this time of year, and usually the first batches of the year go around 8-9 days before they need to be crashed.

The two S04 keg batches with no sugar were already at 1.004, and a little more tart than what I wanted.
The S23 batch with dextrose/turbinado was at 1.010 – nice and smooth, ready to crash
The US05 batch with dextrose/turbinado was at 1.012 – also very tasty and ready to crash
The S04 wildflower honey batch was at 1.018 and still a little sweet
The 4184 white sage honey batch was at 1.020 and still a little sweet
The wild yeast batch was at 1.020 and tasted pretty good, but was fermenting like crazy
The 3068 batch with dextrose/turbinado was still at 1.044

I only had room in the fridge for one carboy, so I crashed one of the S04 batches and racked the other one to slow the ferment down. Then I started checking the DME batches

Most of the DME batches had already fermented out too far and were fairly sour and raw tasting, although the finish was decent. The S23, Nottingham and S04 batches were mostly at 1.004, with a few at 1.006. These didn’t taste nearly as good as the S04 keg batches that were also at 1.004. The US05 batches were at 1.010 – 1.012 and tasted a little better, but again not nearly as good as the US05 keg batch with the same sg. The 3068 batches were still at 1.036 – 1.040 and tasted pretty good

All the DME batches smelled great, even though the taste wasn’t all that. Generally the wheat malt batches were a little smoother than the light malt. The dark malt tasted maltier – more like what I was expecting.

There was still a lot of airlock activity on all the DME batches and it was pretty clear that they werent going to have a lot of residual sugar if left to ferment out on their own, so I stayed up all night and crashed 12 of them (all but the 3068 batches)

*********

Monday after work I racked the crashed S04 batch back into its original carboy and checked the keg batches again, which were as follows

The S04 batch that I racked had moved a little below 1.004, but thankfully not much
The S23 batch dropped 4 points to 1.006, still tasting pretty good.
The US05 batch dropped 2 points to 1.010, still tasting pretty good
The S04 wildflower honey batch dropped 4 points to 1.014, now tasting very drinkable
The 4184 white sage honey batch was still holding at 1.020 and still a little sweet
The wild yeast batch had dropped a whopping 10 points to 1.010 and tasting a little thin
I didn’t bother checking the 3068 batch this time

Since the wild yeast batch seemed to be the most risk of going really bad, I crashed that one. I also racked all of the other batches except for the 3068 and 4184, to get them off the yeast cakes and slow down the ferments until I have time to crash them over the next few days.

I tried a few of the DME batches that have been in the fridge for a day. They were a little better, but still pretty raw tasting. The light malt and wheat malt batches are clearing nicely, but the dark malt batches don’t seem to be dropping any sediment. At this point, it seems pretty clear that the DME wont leave enough residual sugar to skip the cold crashing step. I bumped the cider 15 points with the malt (from 1.050 to 1.065) so maybe if I had gone really high on the sg I would have had some more residual sugar. I’ll give them a few more days and then try to decide if any of them are worth bottling or whether I should just give them to a friend for vinegar stock, so they don’t count against my production limit for this year.

CvilleKevin

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There have been a fair number of questions about cold crashing, so here are a few pics that hopefully will make it easier for folks to see what is going on:

The picture below is of four carboys, seven days after pitching yeast. After six days, they all looked like the two carboys on the right – very light in color, completely opaque and with active ferments going on.

At six days, I cold crashed the carboy on the left, racking it into the jug you see and putting it in the fridge. The carboy next to it was just racked, not cold crashed. The pic was taken just after I took the crashed jug out of the fridge. It had been in the fridge about 20 hours.



The jug that was crashed is very clear (a little hard to see because of the condensation) and has a nice compact layer of sediment on the bottom. The carboy next to it, which was racked at the same time but not crashed has also cleared a little bit, but not nearly as much. The ferment has slowed down, resulting in the juice coming back to its natural color, but again not as much.

Below is a picture after the crashed carboy was racked back into its original container, giving you a more “apples to apples” comparison between the four carboys.



The crashed carboy is now stable. Because I only left it in the fridge for 20 hours, it will continue to drop some sediment for probably another week. At that point, I’ll either rack it to a keg or to a five gallon carboy. Ideally, I would have left it in the fridge for 2-3 days to get it completely clear, but I have a backlog of kegs that need to be crashed. Maybe one of these days I’ll get a chest freezer, but doing them sequentially usually works pretty well (as long as I don’t wait too long to check them, like I did this time).

Also, on the table you’ll see a little tool I made with a CO2 keg charger and a 4 inch pipe nipple. After I rack a carboy and have some headspace like you see here, I’ll give the top a little blast of CO2 to push the air out and fill the headspace with CO2, so I don’t get any oxidation or contamination from the air. You can still see a little CO2 mist on the top of the carboy on the left. One CO2 cartridge is enough for about 5-6 carboys.

Ale yeast batches almost always end up brilliantly clear (last year I had a batch with Staymans and Romes that didn’t clear but that seems to be the exception). The ones fermented with honey clear even faster. Wild yeast fermented batches usually don’t get as clear though. Not sure why.

mZnthebend

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Fantastic information!

I'm going to start my first batch of cider tonight and am looking forward to it. I'm planning to pitch 3 packs of Notty on 10 gallons in a Sankey and purge with CO2. I am also planning on adding several pounds of brown sugar to reach at least 1.060.

Two quick questions.

Do you boil the sugar in water to sterilize before adding or do you add the sugar directly into the fermentor?

Do you typically rehydrate your dry yeast/Notty before pitching?

EDIT: Not sure if it matters, but I am using UV pasteurized cider.

Thanks in advance!

CvilleKevin

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I dont boil the sugar - I just pour it in the top, put a solid bung in, and roll the carboy around on the floor until all the sugar is dissolved. That might be harder to see if you are using a Sankey. It usually takes about 15 minutes for the sugar to dissolve completely, although I'm usually doing 5-8 carboys at a time, so I'm not rolling them all at once. If you cant see it, roll it for a bit, do something else, roll it a bit again, etc for about 15 min and you should be good. Same thing for honey. Warming honey up a bit in a hot water bath will help it pour better, but it still takes some time to fully dissolve.

Brown sugar ferments out a little too caramel for my taste, but that is a matter of taste.

(yeast rehydration comes up a lot in other posts, so sorry for the long answer below)

I pitch the yeast directly on the cider a third of a packet at a time, so that the yeast have a nice smooth re-hydration. Sprinkle it lightly so that they spread out evenly over the surface and form a film of single cells - you dont want any little piles of yeast on top of the cider. You can lightly tap the carboy on the side to encourage the yeast to spread out to make a nice even film while they are rehydrating. Then when the first round sinks, add some more. I keep a solid stopper in the carboy when I am doing this (other than taking it off briefly to add a little more yeast) and also fold the top of the yeast packet over and put a paper clip on it between pitchings to keep everything as sterile as possible during this period. For a fermentation bucket, where there is more surface area than a carboy, you might be able to get the yeast to spread out enough to get an even film all across the top with a single pitch, but I would probably do at least two pitchings just to be safe.

If you are using a Sankey keg I'm not sure how well you will be able to see what the yeast is doing, so it might be easier to make a starter. Using a starter is generally considered to be best practice, although I havent found it to be necessary. Since I usually do a lot of batches at a time, I try to avoid steps that are not absolutely needed. I've done a few hundred batches this way and never had one that didnt start strong. I usually get ferments starting in 6-8 hours, always by 24 hours.

You also may want to make a starter if you are pitching into cold cider. When I get the cider home I first take it to the kitchen to measure sg, pH, add sugar, etc. That room gets a lot of sun so by the time I pitch the yeast, the cider is at about 75F, which the yeast seem to like. After the last pitch of yeast sinks, I give the carboy a good shake to mix it all up. Then I move it to the basement so that it will be cooler for the ferment, puff a little CO2 on the top and add the airlock.

UV pasteurized is fine, it just finished a little cloudy. Personally, I'd rather drink it cloudy that add anything to clear it, although that is your call. Using honey to boost the sg usually does cause pasteurized to clear during the cold crash. Not sure why this is.