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Congratulations! Sounds like your cider turned out great. A couple of curiosities: What was your final gravity? I've had ciders finish naturally at 1.003-4 but not much higher, unless you start playing with it. If yours was higher, I'd love to know what you did What psi did you force...

Anyone ever use citric acid as a preservative in their soda? I'd like to use it so that I can bottle my grape/peach soda and not worry about keeping it cold. I'm wondering what the dosage should be. Any help would be appreciated.

I keg my cider at 18psi for about two weeks and it's nice and carbed up. My question is, will I always lose the first pint or so to pure foam? Basically, I turn my CO2 down to 5psi for service. My line is 15 feet (3/16") and I serve between 35-40 degrees. And every time, the first glass and a...

Cider generally ferments longer than beer. So +1 on wait and rack when it's done. There's no rush. I usually rack off the lees after primary is done, but some prefer to leave on the lees. Leaving it on can promote MLF but can also produce off flavors. I'm not necessarily looking for MLF with my...

Thanks for the suggestion. I read the description of that yeast on the wyeast website and my mouth is watering. I'm definitely going to give it a whirl this year.

Sounds like preservatives in the cider. If that's the case, there's nothing you can do. Fresh, unpasteurized is the best way to go. I wouldn't recommend boiling. You'll probably lose a bunch of aromas and get a "cooked" flavor. Not to mention this will cause issues with the pectic enzymes...

Just curious: what are you favorite yeasts for making cider? I'm thinking largely of the flavor profile of the final product, not the ease with which they produce ethanol. I, for one, have had great success with Lalvin EC-1118. Despite being a powerful champagne yeast, I have gotten some nice...

If your must is around 65 degrees and perhaps below, say down to 60, at the time you wish to inoculate, do you heat it up to say 70 to get the yeast going well and then let it cool back down? (I like a slow fermentation). If so, how do you accomplish this. My concern is that sometimes the area...

200 lbs is about 5 bushels, which should leave you with a very healthy amount of juice. I'm all for keeping it organic, so go for it. Just keep everything clean and sanitized, as best you can. And try to inoculate your yeast as soon as possible and keep O2 exposure to a minimum. Great ciders can...

The goal is to create a permanently sweet and stable cider without adding anything to the cider. This means halting fermentation. Cold-crashing works but is not permanent. One idea I had was to stop fermentation by killing the yeast by heating the cider up to 140 by running the cider from one...

If you cold crash, there's no need to use SO2 and sorbate. The temperature will hault the yeast. There's no need to backsweeten because you have residual sugar. You just need to keep it cold, or else the yeast will get back at it. Campden tablets are SO2, but I prefer SO2 in powder form...

Basically if you get your cider cold enough, the yeast will go dormant and fermentation will cease. Below 35 degrees to be safe. The thing is, though, the second you bring the temperature back up, the yeast will get back to work. This kind of thing works well if you have a kegerator with some...

Next time: much better to dangle a cinnamon stick into your carboy with scent free dental floss. One stick in a 5-6 gal. carboy for a few days to a week should be plenty. For now: rack to get that cinnamon that's stuck on top out of the picture. There's really no way to get the cinnamon...

Another thought: could I lose some of the ethanol to evaporation even though it's 30 degrees below its boiling point?

From personal experience I can tell you that you're almost certainly going to get full attenuation with those yeasts. So you'll either have to cold crash or backsweeten. If you get fresh cider from ripe apples, your OG will probably only be a few points lower than 1.060. I wouldn't bother...

Pretty much every yeast will lead you to full attenuation with cider. Many get well below 1.000. If you want to use natural sugars, you can backsweeten by adding SO2 and K-sorbate first.

Aerate a bit (meaning: stir vigorously) and pitch your yeast. It will almost certainly reach full attenuation, and you'll be left with a dry cider well below 1.000, at which point you'll want to bulk age for 3-6 months. The you'll either love it or you might want to back-sweeten, which you can...

If yeast dies at 140 and ethanol doesn't boil until 170ish, what's wrong with stopping fermentation via heat? Presumably you'll never really clear after that kind of heat, and you might alter the flavor profile, but are there other reasons that this is not adviseable?

In secondary, what would be the cons of sealing the carboy completely? If there is minimal head space and no airflow, this would virtually eliminate the possibility of infection.

Has anyone ever tried using a counter pressure bottle filler to purge the 02 from a carboy? The idea would be to do this when you're going to be left with a sizable head space during bulk storage of a cider that is no longer fermenting and thus will not produce CO2 on its own. I'm thinking of...