Recent content by Alfonsotropolos

Should work great, but there are a couple little precautions you should definitely take. Here is a great resource with all the info you should need to get started! http://www.cider.org.uk/frameset.htm

Looks normal to me. What kind of yeast are you using? Some Champagne yeasts are particularly good at creating small amount of foam during fermentation.

How about freezing a little bit of the original juice you make, then thaw it when your main batch is done fermenting and use it to back carb? Then you can be sure it's 100% preservative free and it's all from the same stuff! Sounds great! Best of luck!

Hope it’s going well, just a couple quick little tidbits that I’ve recently learned. Hope they help! 1. If you can get your hands on anything other than bread yeast try to, ale yeast, wine yeast or Champange yeast should be better designed at converting all your sugar to alchohol...

I always find I want more apple flavor as well. I just tried something called “Frozen Apple” with massive flavor, they freeze the apple juice before fermentation to concentrate it which raises everything because they pull off the water as frozen ice, then the resulting wine is quite...

I recently did a trial with raw meat in a cider fermentation. This was based on a somewhat strange tradition based off old English and old New England farmhouse ciders. I used a very small amount and it didn't affect the cider negatively in anyway. If fully cooked and your alcohol and acid...

You said you strained out as much "applesauce" as you could, were you fermenting the juice along with bits from the apples? What did you mean by applesauce?

And another good one of some extremely wild indigenous yeast/bacteria growth on one of my trials.

Thanks guys! That's some really great looking stuff, can't wait to dive in. Also, here are some of my current trials. Doing a bit of a "Lets see how things are getting on" tasting tonight with some friends.

Thanks! Awesome notes! So you think the medicinal nose was from the yeast? I often come across this medicinal smell in ciders, to me I think it’s a bit phenolic and can be over powering, kind of like menthol and chemicals and band aids all at once. In England it seems to be less...

Here is a bit of stuff I recently came across, hopefully it helps a bit, let me know if you’d like to know more. Volatile phenols released by wood in wine. B-Methyl-y-octalactone – Coconut aroma Eugenol – Smoky spicy aromas Vanillin- Take a guess In barrel-fermented wines...

Some great book suggestions, I'm just about through Ben Watson's Cider Hard and Sweet and am looking forward to Wines and Beers of Old New England. On the Cider front I’m looking for more resources or published books backed by substantial science. I love reading everyone’s forums...

Hey Schott, would love to see your recipe, I’m currently experimenting with a variety of fruits, hops and oaks in cider and it would be great to see what you did, colour looks great.

Thanks for all the great stuff so far! There is something definitely invigorating about the idea of brewing cider very rustically and without additions especially near a manure spreader, just think of all the beautiful microbs that would be about! I’ve got a lot more stuff on its way to...

New England Hard Cider Trial I've started a cycling cornucopia of trial batches on variations of "New England Hard Cider". I'm hoping to try all and any variants on this type of cider. If you have any suggestions or recipes or even just little tid bits you've heard regarding New England...