Recent content by Ninkasi70

I've never made mead, so I can't tell you. Sorry. It was basically the equivalent of tossing 4 big bags of raisins (that happened to be cherries instead) into secondary, putting the airlock back on, shoving it back into its hidey hole and checking back in a month. It was actually the best...

LiquidAvalon - I made cherry cider last year. After cold crashing, I racked to secondary, at that time I added sweetened, dried, tart (Montmorency) cherries that you can get at Costco – it's the Kirkland brand. I used 4 packages for 5 gallons, so if you do this again in the future you...

Thanks for the tips on buying local. I figured everything near Sacto. would be finished for the year. Sounds like it's time for a roadtrip down to Monterey.

I just wrote up what I did with tart cherries in cider last spring. I wouldn't recommend carting it off to the back country like I did, but it really was the best cider I've ever had. Here's the link: Tart Cherry Cider

Hi! Where are you getting pressed pressed juice in SF at this time of year?

I think you must be from Russia, because I have a friend from Moscow who described that exact process to me a few weeks ago. I was reading about the process for making cidre in Brittany, France. What you described is one of the tradition methods that is used there as well (according to what I...

Thanks everyone for helping out. In the end I decided to go with a fresh pack of yeast, because I was spectacularly sloppy with my last batch of cider, and I wasn't 100% that I hadn't picked up some other specimens (last fermentation was really cold sub-60 temps, and I had some kind of lid leak...

Wanted to write up what I did for some cider I made for a friend's wedding last Spring. I had no idea what I was doing and I'm not sure I could replicate it. It was the best cider I've ever had, and it surprised the heck out of the wedding guests. End of March 2011 I pitched a packet of...

Awesome, why that didn't come up when I queried, I'll never know. Thank you so much for the link. But....it looks like washing is for future use, not immediate use. So.... Is there any reason NOT to just pour the new apple juice onto the lees currently at the bottom of the primary?

I keep seeing references to "washing yeast" in posts that refer to re-using a yeast cake. (and yes, I ran a query, but didn't find an explanation). Currently I have 3 gallons of cider that's already dropped to around .996 and has been sitting still in primary for about 3 weeks due to all the...

That's almost exactly what I just did - except that I pitched WLP775. I used 4 pounds of organic cane sugar to get the OG to 1.080. I halted fermentation at 1.015. The result is semi-sweet, and not at all jet fuel-like. I froze my jugs to make sure the yeast really went dormant and then...

I just used it for my 2nd batch. It fermented 5 gal of store-bought juice & 4 lb of sugar in just over 3 weeks at a fairly constant 62° (this temp is about 4 degrees lower than the low end of its stated optimal range). I don't know what the brewer's term is, but I proofed it for 24 hours at...

Well, I needed the smaller bottles that one of the Twins were crashing in, so I dumped that batch back to a sanitized fermentation bucket, topped off with enough fresh juice to bring the SG back up to about 1.002, squirted in a whole charger of Nitrous, popped on an airlock, and shoved the whole...

I'm also wondering whether this would be a good option for a recent batch of cider. Did you try it?

Cool, thx. Any thoughts about the likelihood acetyl acetate contamination?