Need a mentor for my first batch... anyone??

Okay folks.... I've been gleaning this site for a week trying to get the basics down. I have some yeast on order (3 packs of Nottingham) as well as air-traps and drilled rubber corks. I have access to food-grade pails I will use to ferment. I found a local source for pasterized cider.

Anyways, need someone to help me along, someone who doesn't mind a ton of questions. I hate to clog this board up with questions that may have been asked a dozen times before.

Any volunteers?

Questions & answers about beer, wine, mead, cider & related subjects is what this forum is all about; ask away!

I am with gratus.... Clog it up

Allrighty.... here goes....

bump?

Ok. Whatever. I'll take over. I'm waiting on a bucket of cider from the local orchard. The orchard is giving me approx 6 gallons of the pressing. I'm planning on using nottingham yeast (unless you guys think another yeast will keep it more balanced and less dry), and possibly adding some brown sugar or molasses for color. Not sure on the sugar, I don't want to make it too dry.

My questions:

1. What OG can I expect?
2. I've heard that cider will ferment right down to 1.000 or less so what FG should I shoot for without making it too dry?
3. Can I ferment this at cellar temp (about 55)?
4. Will I need a blow-off tube? Is this thing going to ferment like hell and make a big mess?
5. How much volume loss can I expect from sediment/trub?
6. How much priming sugar should I add to make the cider a little extra carbonated, and can beer bottles take the pressure? Or should I get some wine bottles?

Some good questions:
1. What OG can I expect? - without sugar added, I would guess around 1.055.
2. I've heard that cider will ferment right down to 1.000 or less so what FG should I shoot for without making it too dry? you will have to halt fermentation or add nonfermentable sweetening to get your cider to stop fermenting dry. OR you could cold crash it, rack it off and add sorbate/sulphite
3. Can I ferment this at cellar temp (about 55)? (wouldn't reccomned that low of a temp. Depends on your yeast but I would say keep it in the 65-70F range to start the fermentation and then you can back off to 63-65F)
4. Will I need a blow-off tube? Is this thing going to ferment like hell and make a big mess? How big is your carboy? I would say yes, if you are putting in 6 gallons to a 6.5 fermenter.
5. How much volume loss can I expect from sediment/trub? I would expect 2 quart or so loss
6. How much priming sugar should I add to make the cider a little extra carbonated, and can beer bottles take the pressure? Or should I get some wine bottles? you need to use beer bottles or champagne bottles for carbonation. If you sorbate you can't carbonate. If you want residual sugar, you can't bottle carbonate.

CidahMastah said:

Some good questions:
1. What OG can I expect? - without sugar added, I would guess around 1.055.
2. I've heard that cider will ferment right down to 1.000 or less so what FG should I shoot for without making it too dry? you will have to halt fermentation or add nonfermentable sweetening to get your cider to stop fermenting dry. OR you could cold crash it, rack it off and add sorbate/sulphite
3. Can I ferment this at cellar temp (about 55)? (wouldn't reccomned that low of a temp. Depends on your yeast but I would say keep it in the 65-70F range to start the fermentation and then you can back off to 63-65F)
4. Will I need a blow-off tube? Is this thing going to ferment like hell and make a big mess? How big is your carboy? I would say yes, if you are putting in 6 gallons to a 6.5 fermenter.
5. How much volume loss can I expect from sediment/trub? I would expect 2 quart or so loss
6. How much priming sugar should I add to make the cider a little extra carbonated, and can beer bottles take the pressure? Or should I get some wine bottles? you need to use beer bottles or champagne bottles for carbonation. If you sorbate you can't carbonate. If you want residual sugar, you can't bottle carbonate.

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This begs more questions:

Besides the carb/noncarb difference between the cold crash method and the complete fermentation, is there a big flavor difference? Or are they both about the same?

Sounds like the safest bet to keep bottles from bursting would be to ferment completely and then sweeten and control carbonation with priming sugar. Is there any reason to not do this and if I do it this way, do I work it the same proportion of sugar to ferment as with my beer (1 pkg of corn sugar/5 gal...I think it's about a pound)? Or can I keep some of the original cider for priming and if so, how much?

Also, I have heard that I will need to rack to a secondary and tertiary to keep off flavors away. Is this true?

Sounds like the safest bet to keep bottles from bursting would be to ferment completely and then sweeten and control carbonation with

You mean sweeten by an artificial sweetener? If yes,... yes this would be the safest route. You would carbonate the same way you do for beer (priming sugar packet).

For teh first question you get a lot of differing views on that. when it ferments dry, the apple esters can seem a little less that when sweet. When you backsweeten those flavors seem to come back a bit. I have never done two side by side.

You can back sweeten with fresh cider (my usual method) or back sweeten with apple juice concentrate (tastes sort of like woodchuck) or other fruits. With all those, you can't make a sparkling cider, unless your have a kegging setup

Now, if you back sweeten with anything but the artificial sweetener, don't you have to filter it or kill off the yeast so your bottles don't burst?

Here's what I'm thinking is the best route.
1. Ferment completely
2. Backsweeten with artificial sweetener and prime with corn sugar
or
2. Backsweeten with cider, keg and crash cool and KEEP COLD or fermentation starts over.


edit: I just realized how stupid my question was. Can't bottle condition if you kill off or filter the yeast. Force carb would have to be the route if filtered and then if I really had to bottle it would have to be bottled from the keg (honestly, too much work)

You would be suprised at how awesome and easy keg to bottle is. In about an hour+ this weekend I bottled 3 kegs worth of cider and beer. I have the blichman gun. It is wierd but some beers I just prefer in bottles, some I love on draft (IPAs in particular). Also - I like variety. And some stuff, goes slower than others. I don't want kegs cloging up my pipeline!

Unless you mean using a 1.5 micron filter or something, you should have plenty of yeast to carbonate as you described above. (Rack off into bottling bucket, sweeten to taste with splenda, add your priming sugar. Stir gently. wait 15 minutes. Stir gently again and bottle immediately. You will be good to go. Sweet Sparkling

CidahMastah said:

You would be suprised at how awesome and easy keg to bottle is. In about an hour+ this weekend I bottled 3 kegs worth of cider and beer. I have the blichman gun. It is wierd but some beers I just prefer in bottles, some I love on draft (IPAs in particular). Also - I like variety. And some stuff, goes slower than others. I don't want kegs cloging up my pipeline!

Unless you mean using a 1.5 micron filter or something, you should have plenty of yeast to carbonate as you described above. (Rack off into bottling bucket, sweeten to taste with splenda, add your priming sugar. Stir gently. wait 15 minutes. Stir gently again and bottle immediately. You will be good to go. Sweet Sparkling

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You've been a big, big help, man. I appreciate it. Are you anywhere near smAlbany? I owe you a bottle of this cider. I'm just waiting for the funding and time to build a bar with keezer underneath, 4 taps with an ale, wheat, lager and stout on tap...all made with my brutus/single tier/whatever easy to use system that I also don't have the time or funding to build just yet. Even though I love doing it, right now brewing AG is a PITA to do. I'm having a tough time (with a cooler MLT) hitting and keeping mash temps, effectively screwing my efficiency. I figure a direct fire, herms or rims will help me to hit and keep my temps better. Thanks again. You've been a huge help with my questions!
Dan :rockin:

or to make a sweet cider you can ferment with ale yeast. That way you dont have to kill the yeast.

Thanks Dan - glad to help.

By the way I am near smalbany ish I am just south east out of syracuse.

I got lucky and finally got the coin to make my set up. Now, all I really want is a bigger kettle and some all grain stuff, but I will boil in a bag for now because the wife has been more than pleasant about all this spending. Don't want to push it! I am gonna build the rest one piece at a time

Not sure where Jamesville is, and can't think of what is Southeast of Syracuse at the moment. I grew up between Binghamton and Cortland and work brought me up to the Capital. Got a buddy that lives very close to Syracuse that brews. I think he works in Cortland now making the commute south. What is that, about 1/2 hour?

Yeah actually Cortland is close to me, like say, 20 minutes or so. Jamesville is off rt 81 about 15 minutes to the city on a good day.

So I put the campden tablets in the carboy and put an airlock on last night. I'm out of town for two days. I can just pitch in the carboy or do I have to rack to a different bucket and get it off the sediment that is already forming before I pitch? I got close to 6 gallons of cider, pitching Windsor Ale yeast and I'm putting about 2 lbs of dark brown sugar in...what do you think? am I good? I didn't take a gravity reading. I'm just going to ferment to completion, prime and keg. If it tastes like champagne made with apple juice, so be it.

One thing you can do if you want all natural is to just add some apple juice or sweet cider to your glass at drinking time. My first cider was bone dry and about 12% ABV. It was good drinking, but many didn't care for it. Adding sweet cider to the glass really made it a pleasure to drink, and added to the apple notes.

Rockape66 said:

One thing you can do if you want all natural is to just add some apple juice or sweet cider to your glass at drinking time. My first cider was bone dry and about 12% ABV. It was good drinking, but many didn't care for it. Adding sweet cider to the glass really made it a pleasure to drink, and added to the apple notes.

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Well, I'm thinking I might just keg it and add campden and apple juice to the keg. Then if I'm feeling ambitious I'll get a beer theif and bottle that sucker after carbing.

If you plan on bottling it - add camden AND sorbate then force carb and bottel. You need the sorbate to protect against yeast reproduction (eventual bottle bombs)

I'll make sure I add camp den and sorbate if I bottle it. Thinking if I do though I mig just add the artificial sweetener though. We will see.

I just replied to a post not realizing it was more than 2 years since the last post...I'll repost here for your input

Ok. So I didn't know this was the case. I made 5 gallons of cider and it smells exactly as you guys describe it. Exactly what I imagine a rhino fart would smell like. Fermentation stopped. I racked it to a corny about 1/2 an hour ago. It's been fermenting close to three, maybe four weeks. Bubbling stopped yesterday. The valve on the corny is closed...should I open it? It still smelled like sulfur and didn't taste all that great to me. Anyone got any suggestions? Let it sit? Dump it? Treat it with something?

I usually get a sulfur smell in my ciders during fermentation. What I've read, and has not failed yet, is to leave it in the fermenter for about 2 weeks and the sufur smell dissipates. Good luck.

Fermentation id often stinky, and usually means all is well. Keep it under airlock until the stink subsides.

CidahMastah said:

Fermentation id often stinky, and usually means all is well. Keep it under airlock until the stink subsides.

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Well, I had it under airlock when I put the campden tablets in and it sat for close to 5 days before I pitched. No activity until I pitched either, (Windsor ale yeast, dry). It almost immediately started bubbling and formed a krausen. When it stopped bubbling, I kegged it and it STUNK. Then, it started comming out through one of the posts (I didn't have it tightened down all the way...it must be still fermenting). I opened the pressure release valve and now it's sitting at the top of the stairs. This should probably be OK right?