Recent content by MrFinstad

Hmmmm. I have seen small clumps suspended in cider before, but they were only suspended in a few layers and cider smelled like rotten eggs. As long as it doesn't taste bad, it is probably fine to drink. You could try fining with bentonite and see if that clears it up.

Here's how to carbonate in the example you gave: 1. Adjust CO2 pressure to 10 PSI 2. Connect the Co2 to the keg and purge the headspace with co2. 3. Leave CO2 connected to keg at 10 psi for a week. 4. Drink your carbonated cider! P.S. If you balance your draft system with the correct length...

What jonurban said is right on. What you're probably wondering is what carbonation level you want for cider. Most draft cider contains around 2 volumes of CO2. For commercial cider makers there's is actually a legal limit of 3.98mg/l, which is just under 2 volumes. If a commercial producer goes...

The drawback to thinning out the juice before fermentation is thinning out the flavor. While it will work perfectly to dilute the sugar concentration, you are also diluting the flavor compounds and and aromatics that you want to stick around until after fermentation. Another really important...

I agree with what Yooper said. When you start with higher gravities, you move away from the cider flavor and towards the wine flavor. I think this is because the yeast is doing more work to ferment, thus contributing more yeast flavor the cider. Since you used ale yeast, you can expect a...

Can you post a picture? I'm not exactly sure what you mean by lumpy. Yeast do clump up (i.e. flocculate) but these are relatively small. Some spoilage bacteria can make the cider "ropey" which means there are gelatinous blobs stuff floating around. The third option is that you let apple...

I keg lots of cider and I always recommend the low and slow method. That is, let it sit at about 40F for six days on 10psi. This gives a little less than 2 volumes of carbonation. While jacking up the pressure really high to 30psi works, it isn't very consistent. If you can manage to wait a...

You are probably smelling hydrogen sulfide, aka rhino farts. This can be produced when cider is left on the lees for too long and when yeast are stressed. If you catch it early, you can splash rack a few times to clear it up. If you do this, make sure your sulfite levels are high enough to fight...

This guy makes a decent point but his attitude sucks. GMO'S are bad for the same reason macro brew is bad, quality takes a backseat to profitability. I think theres a few things he misses: beer is not the sum of its ingredients. It's also process and craftmanship. I'm fine with RR charging more...

Sorry for the belated reply. I didn't place in anything, but I really appreciated the feedback. This is only my second competition but it was much better than the first (despite the fact I placed 1st in the last one). This time they actually filled out the whole sheet! I scored a 39 with...

FedEx just notified me that my yeast samples were delivered in Minneapolis! Hopefully they're still in one piece and being coddled by the folks at northern brewer. This being my first nhc, I'm curious to hear what other people entered. Anyone have any hopefuls? I sent my English ipa, American...

So I was a dumb ass and tried turning my grain mill with this crappy old drill. Unfortunately it stripped a metal off the drive shaft on the mill. My dumb assery has driven me to finally invest in a motor, but I'm worried it will be hard to mount a sheeve or coupler because the diameters all...

what do you mean clean your carboy? I've just been using them for target practice in the front yard. It adds a real nice sparkle to the burning trash heap I use to keep my house warm.

hot damn! just built two of these in about 4 hours. The multimeter says they both work. Tomorrow I'll plug them into the chest freezer and heat tape to see how they stand up in the brewery. Thanks for the awesome idea! I'll be spending the cash I saved on more carboys to fit in the giant...

According to this article, you're going to need to expose them for quite a while: http://www.livestrong.com/article/252729-the-effects-of-uv-light-on-yeast/