Apfelwein Questions

Just brewed a batch of Apfelwein last night and am curious if the carboy needs to be covered/in a dark room for fermentation. I noticed that most of EdWort's Apfelwein carboys are not covered and wanted to see if there is a reason why this would not need to be covered when normal beers do to avoid skunking/off-flavors.

Also, if anyone has any thoughts on fermentation temp for Apfelwein, would be interested to hear. EdWort mentions 74 degrees so since he's the expert, I'm going with that so far, just also interested on why this is much higher than most beer fermentation temps.

I'm guessing it has to do with some of the more complex components of a beer compared to apple juice however was curious. Also, maybe the champagne yeast ferments so dry that any esters would be eliminated?

Thanks.

No help but since I'm getting ready to brew my first batch of this, I'd like to hear what the answers are.

The reason behind the dark area is so you do not skunk the beer, your hops are the reason a beer would skunk, they react to light. As for temp, I did mine at about 70 and it turned out great.

You don't really need to cover it, but it won't hurt. I've read some things on white wines needing to be stored out of sunlight. But your apfelwein will be much more UV resistant than beer since there are no hops in it.

I've found that the yeast used in apfelwein will ferment well in a wide temperature range and not give off flavors. So don't worry too much about it, but I wouldn't go too far above Edwort's 74, mine sits at 68 or so in the basement and does fine.

Hey, I have an Apfelwein Question. What is it? I tried Googling, but I really suck at searches; all I was able to divine is that it's hard cider. Okay, cool ... but what, exactly, is hard cider? For that matter, what's cider? I'm serious! I'm an old beer drinker for chrissakes, how am I supposed to know what all these exotic elixirs are??

This explains it....

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/man-i-love-apfelwein-14860/

Thank You!