wcarter - going above 1.024 would be kinda risky. Personally, I'd take the risk over the chemical taste. Definitely keep an eye on it to make sure it doesnt start back up and cold crash again if you need to
You can get good store bought juice, but probably not at the super market. I bought the pasteurized version of Showalter's juice at a local produce store for a couple years before I started going to the orchard. If you have some good produce stores, they may have some good local juice. Some orchards are finding it hard to compete with the Chinese for cheap bulk juice and focus instead on finding outlets where customers will pay a premium for better quality juice.
Other than getting Showalters from C-ville Market, the best store bought juice I used was from Whole Foods, but even that was not as good as a mediocre fruit stand batch.
It turned out that her last batch is labeled as from Morris Orchard. The OG is 1.061, which is the highest of any apples I've had this year. I'm using S-04 for the first time. I think the blend is Fuji, Winesap & Rome. I like the taste of the juice even better than the stuff I've got from Henley and I didn't have to press it! It was even cheaper too, so fingers crossed.
I wound up just going to whole foods to get some more juice. I have 3 batches going now. 1 batch with Notty which has been very good to me, 1 batch I did with wyeast 3068, and I did a batch with Brett B. Kind of curious how the brett will act in cider but my guess is that it will be different for sure, but some of the fruity esters might pair well with the cider.
Ill report back in a few weeks.
The batch I did with Us-05 that was at 1.024 has started back up again when I added the frozen juice to sweeten it up. I have since then re racked it, cold crashed and re-racked again. I just did this today so will see what happens. Its now down to 1.018 and since I added the concentrate it tastes a lot more appley.
Its funny but before I started to read this thread I used to buy and drink a lot of cider with sorbate in it and couldnt taste the difference. Just for the hell of it I put a flake of sorbate on my tongue and it was horrible. I then bought a gallon of the cider with sorbate in it and did a side by side with one without sorbate and could right away tell the difference.
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You think it would be worth while to culture some yeast from a bottle of JKS scrumpy? I know its a wild yeast strain and was just curious if there would be a any downfalls to doing this? I ask cause my wife , my best friend, and I typically drink about 15-20 bottles of this a month. Could try to get dregs from like 6-8 bottles and slowly step it up. what do you think? How high of an Og should i be looking at for starter 1.030? How big of a starter do I need to make?
By the way my batch with us-05 and added juice was mighty tasty. Not sure how long it was going to be stable for so decided to have friends over and the gallon went that night.
The Notty batch is moving along pretty well. Thinking a few more days and will check fg.
The Brett B batch is moving very slowly. It took almost 2 days to show signs of active fermentation. Airlock smells have been very interesting. Kind of has a roasted bacon/mango smell.
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primary:15 minute Cascade Pale Ale
Primary 2: Cream of 3 crops
Primary 3: Sam Adams Holiday Porter Clone
bottled:BM's Blue Balls Belgian Wit
15 Minute Cascade Pale Ale
DryHopped Cream of 3 Crops http://hopville.com/brewer/wcarter1227
Last edited by wcarter1227; 01-22-2010 at 08:05 PM.
Reason: Spelling
wcarter - I'm pretty sure that JKS uses natural yeast for the main fermentation and then uses champagne yeast for carbonation after the natural yeast is finished. They also ferment at lager temps (which are good for natural yeast) over a period of many months. You might get some of the wild yeast from using trub from a few bottles, but I suspect it would be mostly champagne yeast.
The closest batch I've tasted to JKS was made by some friends before the holidays. They added 2 lbs of brown sugar to fresh unpasteurized juice -- nothing else, and used the WLP300 wheat yeast. The wheat yeasts ferment pretty slow, which gives the wild yeast a bit of a chance to take hold and add some flavor before the wheat yeast takes over - and wheat yeast is easier to manage than a wild yeast batch. It took about 3 or so weeks to drop down to 1.020, at which point they crashed it. The end result was very similar to a JKS - it had a little lighter taste than JKS, which I liked, and definitely in the same style.
If you dont have access to unpasteurized juice, some of that brett batch might work to give you some of the wild yeast flavor. maybe mix a small bit of that batch with one of your other batches to see how it tastes.
I'm on my 4th batch of cider... started with two different 1 gallon batches using S-23, then switched to a 6 gallon batch using nottingham, and now I've got another 6 gallon batch going using S-04. The S-04 has a lot more apple flavor than the nottingham had at the same SG. I crashed the nottingham at 1.014 and got it stabilized. I then let it sit for a couple days and primed it and bottled it. It has been 2.5 weeks and my plastic carb tester bottle hasn't firmed up much. I'm thinking of stopping the fermentation on the S-23 sooner on this one... to see if that helps carb it up more. It is currently at 1.018 and tastes fantastic. If I prime it and bottle, once the bottles are firm enough... can I move to the fridge without risk of bottle bombs? Basically, is there any chance that the fermentation will continue once they are bottled and in the fridge?
Hi jrss13 - In general, I dont think you can rely on the fridge to completely stop the S-23 particularly with that high a gravity. Since its a lager yeast, its really tough to get it to stop fermenting. Usually I've had to crash the s23 batches twice to get them to stop fermenting. However, it does seem to be easier to get gallon batches to stop. A few years ago I crashed a gallon of S23, just did one crash, and saved a liter at room temp till the following September - but I might have just got lucky.
If you crash at a high enough sg, you dont need to prime it - the sugar in the juice will give you the carb, but if you cold crash it and you get all the yeast out, you are not going to see much carbonation. Maybe a little bit from MLF. So you probably wont get any carbonation from that Nottingham batch, or from the S04 if you cold crash it. The S-23 is more likely to keep going after a single crash.
If you want to bottle carb, you are probably better off with a single rack instead of cold crashing. That will get rid of most, but not all of the yeast. Then you can either pasteurize the bottles after the test bottle firms up (most reliable), or if you have fridge space and you are using ale yeast, you can put them in the fridge when they reach the desired carbonation level. The ale yeasts will go dormant in the fridge, the lager yeasts will just slow down.
Thanks for the response. I messed up a little in my post (figures...as I was drinking some Pilsner I bottled a few weeks back)... anyways. The S-23 batches are long gone at this point, and I currently have the S-04 batch that I am contemplating what to do with. I want it fairly sweet, and I want it carbonated... but at the same time I want to get rid of the yeast taste. I am not all that concerned with it being clear. Anyways, I did rack it and crash it yesterday, so it has been in my fridge for about 30 hours or so. I am not really seeing too much yeast on the bottom of the carboy at this point.
If I read your post correctly, I should probably pull it out of the fridge soon so I don't drop out too much of my yeast? Would you recommend letting it sit at room temp for a few days before bottling?
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jrss13 - if you want it to bottle carb, then yes, you dont want all the yeast to drop out, so take it out of the fridge soon. I'd bottle it straight away and not let it set at all if you want to get a bottle carb. Just make sure you get them back in the fridge when the test bottle starts to firm up. My experience with S04 is that it stops fairly reliably if you cold crash it, although you might get a little bit of carb from MLF if you are lucky. It probably depends somewhat on the juice. good luck.
Here is one I tried.3 gallons fresh cider with 2 cans Apple juice concentrate mixed via instructions.2 cups of table sugar and red star montrachet(sp) yeast. Well gotta say.. so. Far it tastes kinda rancid. I have bottled it. Each week I try some and it has started to get slightly better.
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