Recent content by CRock303

So I did a 3 gallon batch with 20 oz of Sun-maid brown raisins as yeast. It worked, it worked so good. They dry the regular(non-golden) raisins in the vineyard so there should be some legit wine yeasts on them. Going off this reasoning I did 20 oz of raisins and some nutrient and energizer. I...

Try some wine tannin. It is one thing that separates cider apples from desert apples.

Kinda looks like yeast, not sure though. Does it smell/taste funky? Maybe stick it in the fridge for a couple hours and see it it drops down.

Compared side to side you might get a little difference, but it is really hard to tell otherwise. I prefer to just use concentrate to keep the sugars in line with the juice. It's probably just superstition though.

Sounds good for a dry cider, it depends on the apples used in the juice. That's where your flavor differences are going to come from. Just be patient, I'd rack it to secondary and bulk age it for a couple months before I bottled with something like this.

Check your hydrometer for calibration too, it could be off. Stick it in some 60 degree water and it should be right at 1.000.

Their stuff is made with fresh pressed apples, better than your average store bought. If I were trying for one I would add some malic acid and bottle condition with honey as your priming sugar. If I had to guess apples I'd say grannys, galas and empires might work.

I have one going with S-23 right now it has some interesting fruit flavors, I detected peach. I threw some hops in last night to dry hop for a week before I stabilize and keg it. It's a cleaner flavor than an ale yeast if you insist on using beer yeast. I'd probably use it again if I wanted to...

Get an unsmoked bacon slab and smoke it and rotate in apples for 10-20 min at a time in the smoker depending on how smoky you want it to be. 20 min is a pretty heavy smoke.

Did you ever rack it? I'd rack it if you haven't already and let it sit off the lees for a bit and give it another shot. Top up your headspace with more juice too.

It goes skunky (think Heinakin (SP?)) if exposed to light, if you age in clear glass you run that risk even in a dark room. Dry hopping doesn't fully activate hops' antibacterial properties, you have to boil them to get the full effect.

I age my hopped ciders then dry hop the last week or two before bottling or kegging, depending on how long you want to age the hops can spoil.

Never had it happen to me, but from what I understand the tops will pop off at a certain pressure usually before the glass breaks.

Fill your airlocks with cheap vodka instead of water and you won't have to worry about infection from suckback.

It might take a few weeks for your cider to carbonate, just be patient.