Recent content by gcastrat

Uh huh... right.. if you ever wind up with any of this tainted juice that happens to have %ABV.. just send it my way and I'll run a set of "medical tests".

Although I never tried, I bet you could use apples from the ground and quickly press them. Then hit it with Kmeta and I'm pretty sure that'll kill whatever lives in the juice.

The air coming in (& going out) for changes in temp and barometric pressure is the #1 reason why I usually top off my ciders that are going to age for more than a month or so. If you're a purist just use some apple juice.. And I usually hit them with a little CO2 when I rack them.

Answering #1.. go for high quality bottles (EZ-CAP) and use a carboy cleaner on each one. Check your local water report, if it's full of bacteria sanitize. If it's clean of bacteria, forget about it permanently. Use same procedure for beer. Carboys and pre-fermentation stuff is a different...

If you have fully dry cider and like the taste, then don't do anything. It'll last a year or so, but if you want to keep it longer or want it to be clearer / crisper then add some campden tablets. The nice part about this stuff is that you can play with it, right.. beer is a disposable model...

You haven't tasted it - really? Best thing to do would be to keep some campden tablets (k-meta) around and if it tastes or starts to look weird give it a hit of that and bottle it in 24 hours. If you have some on hand you can fix problems with it. I wouldn't fear sulfites, just like I don't...

If it's ready to rack, I'd rack it off that stuff and top it off. If you haven't added k-meta then do so. Sometimes if fermentation is completely done you may wind up with acetobacter (vinegar) that will rob you of your alcohol slowly. This usually doesn't mean the cider is undrinkable but...

You can create something sweet at that point but not dry. You'll have to dilute it, but if you do I would recommend adding something to it. Perhaps add citric acid as you'll have no flavor left.. Or if you can find some apple flavor concentrate but you're almost surely going to be non-natural...

I wouldn't start with that kind of recipe doing a first cider. Start with something simple like 100% natural juice (ingredients count) and a simple fermentation using a good ale yeast. Nottingham is great for basic ciders but if you want to get into ciders that are drier you'll need to add...

This seems a bit strange. Even the higher ciders I've brewed, with 3-5 lbs of honey added an a vigorous yeast have still tasted great after a year. Something tells me you are using a bad yeast and fermenting way to high to produce that amount of fusels. It's almost impossible to guess wihtout...

Might wind up with some applejack.. and that would be bad, MMMKay?

Since you are running these experiments, is it possible to determine the difference in taste between cold crashing at precisely the right FG.. versus back sweetening to that FG using the original juice? I think a lot of us are wondering if back sweetening is preferable versus finding the right...

I'd put this as a pre-chiller to cool the water going into an immersion chiller. Put it in a bucket of ice. Doesn't look like it'd be too sanitary.

You can also use spring water too, especially if you're using a dry yeast since you'll be hitting something around 7% anyways...

Are you shaking your cider? Adding yeast nutrient and FRESH yeast? I usually add two and don't bother with rehydrating. Quick starts and bubbling within 6 hours usually... Strange behavior indeed!