Recent content by jblaschke

I don't think I've ever had any get beyond 3-4 years. It was certainly better then than at bottling.

Don't overthink it. Ascorbic acid (vitamin C) is the most common preservative found in apple juice, and it won't impact fermentation. If you read through all 9 million-plus posts in this thread, you'll see many, if not most of the regular brewers here use the cheapest apple juice they can get...

I've got a three gallon batch going. Having lost count on how many of these apfelwein batches I've made, I want to post the variations I've included. I have used cloudy organic cider as well as clear, cheap apple juice in the past. Any flavor differences are subtle. This batch is split between...

As others have said, tiny amounts won't impact the flavor of your mead one iota. In fact, I add a few grains of the stuff as a preservative when I'm making syrups for my home bar. Orgeat, cinnamon and simple syrups have a much longer shelf life if you don't have to worry about stray yeasts...

I have no subscriptions, and am somewhat lapsed as a homebrewer at this point, although I have a few projects I'm thinking about breaking out the ol' carboy for. I would occasionally pick up some of those magazine listed above off the rack.

I've got that book, too! I can't recall ever making one of their recipes to the letter, but I've used it as inspiration on multiple occasions.

Well, it's not exactly an either-or proposition, is it? I've got several types of blackberry, goji berry, pineapple guava, muscadine, passion fruit and agarita growing in addition to my various trees, with plans for goumi and at least four different grape varietals in the future. And that...

Very nice! I doubt I'll ever go the full-blown cellar route, but your work is inspiring!

So, did you find that by not heating the fruit the color is preserved? I've done several prickly pear meads in the past and that deep, rich color is almost completely gone within six months. I've found that freezing the fruit releases a LOT of additional juice. Thaw it, put it in a fruit press...

I've never timed it, but I don't recall it taking a particularly long time if you've given it the right amount of priming sugar. Montrachet is a strong yeast that's not going to stall out at apfelwein alcohol levels. I'd expect a month to be plenty of time. Of course, ageing longer isn't going...

I'm halfway through a 3 gallon fermentation. After having success with a BOMM mead, I'm trying a similar approach with the apfelwein. In addition to using Wyeast 1388 instead of Montrachet, I added 3 can of concentrate along with a pound of sugar. The sg reading when I pitched the yeast was...

3 gallons in progress. 30,1551.5

At the previous house, it took 10 years before all of the various trees I'd planted came into bearing. And then we sold it and I've had to start over again. As they say, the best time to plant a fruit tree is 10 years ago.

Well, there you go! To extract more tannin (and flavor) I'd probably crush the fruit and add skins and all to the secondary. I tried a sort of pear melomel a few years ago with dessert pears and despite using a pretty high ratio of juice, the final flavor was disappointingly thin...

A little late for your needs, but pear wine/cider is traditionally called perry. Dessert/eating pears aren't strongly-flavored enough to make high-quality perry, but can certainly be fermented. Traditional perry pears are too tannic and/or acidic to be eaten out of hand. You can Google up a...