Man, I love Apfelwein

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Blank3d said:
is there a search option on the page somewhere to just search within the 500+page thread?

anywho, i'm going to be making my first apfelwein batch tonite (as if anyone would care) but was just curious if 7.9 gallon plastic ale pail was good for fermenting this in? I have an extra ale pail lying around that i dont really use all the time and i'd figure why not. i notice alot of people on here use either plastic carboy or glass carboy when doing this batch. is it because you want to know when its cleared or it doesnt really matter?
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Just let it sit for 8 weeks, then pop that ale pale lid, and it should be cleared, if not, re-lid or rack it to whatever, and let it sit longer. Once that's done, sit back and have a home brew and not fret!
 
I have got to say it -- Wow. This is some really tasty stuff. I took a gravity reading last night (Around 3 weeks in the carboy, now reading 0.998) and had a taste test. I cannot believe how well this is turning out.

It still needs more time as it has not cleared yet and I would like to see it hit 0.990 before bottling. I am going to give it at least another 3 weeks so it should be finished just in time for my birthday!
 
Hegh said:
Wow, do you have an OG on that? It must be like 15-16% ABV!
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I didn't get an OG, and I'm starting to wonder if i read the hydrometer right. .920 just seems too low for ale yeast (Notty or not). That said, this is very dry and a little hot, so it may be correct. I can say this has very nice legs when poured in a wine glass and swirled.

I'll give it a few months in the bottle and see if it mellows any.

Terje
 
just made this, but I didn't rehydrate my yeast... am I hosed? I was following the original post to the letter and didn't even think about it until I was done. Also, I have carboy set up in my basement which is ~67'ish degrees, will it be fine?


One more thing, I used a yeast nutrient as well. It's the only thing I did that wasn't in the OP recipe.
 
zzees said:
just made this, but I didn't rehydrate my yeast... am I hosed? I was following the original post to the letter and didn't even think about it until I was done. Also, I have carboy set up in my basement which is ~67'ish degrees, will it be fine?


One more thing, I used a yeast nutrient as well. It's the only thing I did that wasn't in the OP recipe.
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Should be just fine. I just sprinkled my yeast in the gallon carboy, never rehydrated and mine came out fine. It might take a bit longer to start, but otherwise no issues.
 
Because I like to brag, Apfelwood taps for my soon to be ready Apfelwein:
Taps.jpg


All I did was cut up the branches, scrap off the bark, drill a hole, and pound in a 3/8" coarse threaded rod union.
 
Stratotankard said:
Should be just fine. I just sprinkled my yeast in the gallon carboy, never rehydrated and mine came out fine. It might take a bit longer to start, but otherwise no issues.
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thanks for the quick reply.

I have a nice place for it in my basement, so it can sit in the primary for 3 months undisturbed. So it's NP if it takes a bit longer to get started. Once it gets going I hope the yeast nutrient kicks it into gear.
 
ah ****. i just bucketed my first batch. followed all directions and sanitized my equipment twice. towards the end of my last quart of pouring apple juice into the bucket i noticed something floating at the bottom of the bucket. got my sanitized spoon and fished it out of there. under close inspection it seemed like it was a fly leg, i could be wrong, thats what it looked like. anywho, now i'm paranoid that my batch will go to waste...

anyone one else on here ever have a "fly" leg or anything else for that matter fall into their batch while making a batch? lol

i should be fine though, right?
 
Blank3d said:
ah ****. i just bucketed my first batch. followed all directions and sanitized my equipment twice. towards the end of my last quart of pouring apple juice into the bucket i noticed something floating at the bottom of the bucket. got my sanitized spoon and fished it out of there. under close inspection it seemed like it was a fly leg, i could be wrong, thats what it looked like. anywho, now i'm paranoid that my batch will go to waste...

anyone one else on here ever have a "fly" leg or anything else for that matter fall into their batch while making a batch? lol

i should be fine though, right?
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Should be fine, but if you're really worried, I'm pretty sure the accepted thing to do is to drop 1 campden tablet in for each gallon, mix it around until dissolved, wait a week, and re-pitch your yeast ('cause that would have killed the yeast as well as any bacteria).

Anyone, correct me if I got that wrong, I'm not a wine guy.
 
It's more protein , what doesn't kill ya will only make you stronger!!!!:rockin: But really it's no problem..The yeast will kill off most stuff long before it gets legs...LMAO
 
svengoat said:
It's more protein , what doesn't kill ya will only make you stronger!!!!:rockin: But really it's no problem..The yeast will kill off most stuff long before it gets legs...LMAO
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Hegh said:
Should be fine, but if you're really worried, I'm pretty sure the accepted thing to do is to drop 1 campden tablet in for each gallon, mix it around until dissolved, wait a week, and re-pitch your yeast ('cause that would have killed the yeast as well as any bacteria).

Anyone, correct me if I got that wrong, I'm not a wine guy.
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awesome! thanks guys for the response. i threw the lid on and hoped for the best. its been about 24 hours since i put everything together and its bubbling like crazy now. :ban:
 
Heres The result of my apfelwein...This batch sat in a carboy for 1 month...probably should have left it longer but i needed the carboy... and has been bottle conditioning for 2 weeks. I bottled 2 gallons up still, drank one of the galllons with some friends, aging another and the remaining 3 gallons are in 1 liter swingtop bottles with carb tabs. Chilled a bottle down 2 days ago and cracked this bad boy open. Its really clear but the glass has condensation on it due to it being extremely chilled. Need to start another batch cause I have a feeling this wont last too long.

heres a pic
Warren Carter's Photos | Facebook

cant wait til this is at 6 months
 
My Apfelwein from 3/1/2009 is really becoming great.
All i can say is:
EdWort is a MoF%^*kER
 
I just tossed in another batch.. replaced 1 gallon of apple juice with 1 gallon of black cherry juice. Hopefully it turns out good =)
 
popped a top on the batch I made 5/7. Subbed in 4oz of turbinado with corn sugar when mixing and bottled with 1/2 cup corn sugar and 1/3 cup honey. Man is that good. Bottled 1/2 of it and filled 2 5L mini's. I will be taking the mini's to Traverse City for the 4th of July, not a bad thing to have on the pontoon - refreshing and strong. Yee haw!
 
I did not have good results from pressed apple juice, but added 3lbs of mesquite to back sweeten and it is much better now!
 
I'm going to start out with a 1 gallon batch. Whole Foods sells organic apple juice in awesome 1 gallon bottles, so I figured I'd start small.

so, by my math, it's 1 gallon juice, 6.4oz dextrose, and another poster said the entire packet of montrachet yeast?

Also, will it take 1 gallon less time than 5 gallons to ferment?

When it is "done" fermenting, how will I know? Can I leave it in the glass bottle/carboy and keep it in the fridge?
 
@elbajista, I'd say just to do the whole 5 gallons. Its a small investment, and by the time that 1 gal batch finishes, you'll crave more. While its fermenting, leave it somewhere dark, a closet or something is fine. And as long as you wait out at least 3 weeks, it should ferment enough. Leave it longer for better taste. And no, the amount you're brewing doesn't have that much of an effect on the time.
 
What do you mean by better taste? Is there any amount of time that is "too" long to leave in the carboy?

When it's finished fermenting, do I have to transfer the brew to another vessel? Would it be bad to leave it in the carboy?
 
I believe we've pushed an 8 month time period of just leaving the apfelwein in the primary fermenter. No transferring needed, you can leave it in the carboy. If you look around the thread you'll see some of the batches go quite a ways back. Challenge yourself and see how long you can save a gallon or so! :)
 
I am going to my mom's house this weekend, going to pull the 90year old cider press out of the barn, and pick some of her apples (she has 30 trees) and make a batch with fresh juice. I think I will pasturize it before I start

I hear this stuff is great after aging for months, but ever since I let people taste it 2 weeks after kegging, I have not been able to keep this stuff on hand long enough to age more than 2 weeks before I need to pull out a new keg.
 
bubbachunk said:
I did not have good results from pressed apple juice, but added 3lbs of mesquite to back sweeten and it is much better now!
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I'm curious...what kind of results did you get from the fresh juice?

The batch I made with a friend's fresh juice has finally cleared, so tonight I pulled a small sample. It's VERY different from all of the previous batches I've made with commercial, pasteurized juice. For starters, when you bring the glass to your mouth, you immediately notice a distinct odor. My first thought was "barnyard," and when I asked my girlfriend's opinion, she said "like a sweaty animal." After some thought, I'm going to go with "musky." These are NOT the kind of words you want describing a refreshing beverage!

It doesn't taste as bad as it smells, but it's remarkably tart.

Apart from the fresh juice, this was made like my previous batches...2lbs of dextrose, and Montrachet. The only other differences is that I dissolved 5 campden tablets, 24 hours before pitching the yeast. This is my first experience with campden, and I wonder if it's related to the odor and or tart taste.
 
BlindLemonLars said:
I'm curious...what kind of results did you get from the fresh juice?

The batch I made with a friend's fresh juice has finally cleared, so tonight I pulled a small sample. It's VERY different from all of the previous batches I've made with commercial, pasteurized juice. For starters, when you bring the glass to your mouth, you immediately notice a distinct odor. My first thought was "barnyard," and when I asked my girlfriend's opinion, she said "like a sweaty animal." After some thought, I'm going to go with "musky." These are NOT the kind of words you want describing a refreshing beverage!

It doesn't taste as bad as it smells, but it's remarkably tart.

Apart from the fresh juice, this was made like my previous batches...2lbs of dextrose, and Montrachet. The only other differences is that I dissolved 5 campden tablets, 24 hours before pitching the yeast. This is my first experience with campden, and I wonder if it's related to the odor and or tart taste.
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I didn't have the smell and mine had sulfides added to. The campden should not be the issue. I have a second batch going at a buddys I need to check on but he has described the same taste. I recommend back sweetening and stabilizing with some honey as I had a very good result.
 
My wife has me on an Atkins diet and we're supposed to be counting how many grams of carbs that we consume.

That means no beer for now . . . but I just kegged up a mighty tasty batch of Apfelwein (my first batch) and I want to know if I'm supposed to be drinking it. I assumed it had almost no sugar, but I thought I'd check with you guys first.

So how many grams/liter of residual sugar is there in my apfelwein?

I followed the original recipe - juice, dextrose (a hair over 2 lbs for 5 gallons), and montrachet wine yeast . . and let it ferment out dry with no backsweetening.

Starting gravity: 1.070

Final gravity: 0.999 (measured 3 weeks into the fermentation process - I forgot to measure again when I racked at 2 months and it's already carbed up, but I assume it's still 0.999)

So how much sugar is left in there?

Thanks!!

PS: EdWort, this stuff tastes fantastic - thanks for the recipe. I like it drinking it both straight up in a white wine glass as well as in a large pilsner glass with a splash of diet sprite and ice. My wife loves it, too - and she's a serious wine snob/enthusiast.
 
brewthunda said:
My wife has me on an Atkins diet and we're supposed to be counting how many grams of carbs that we consume.

That means no beer for now . . . but I just kegged up a mighty tasty batch of Apfelwein (my first batch) and I want to know if I'm supposed to be drinking it. I assumed it had almost no sugar, but I thought I'd check with you guys first.

So how many grams/liter of residual sugar is there in my apfelwein?

I followed the original recipe - juice, dextrose (a hair over 2 lbs for 5 gallons), and montrachet wine yeast . . and let it ferment out dry with no backsweetening.

Starting gravity: 1.070

Final gravity: 0.999 (measured 3 weeks into the fermentation process - I forgot to measure again when I racked at 2 months and it's already carbed up, but I assume it's still 0.999)

So how much sugar is left in there?

Thanks!!

PS: EdWort, this stuff tastes fantastic - thanks for the recipe. I like it drinking it both straight up in a white wine glass as well as in a large pilsner glass with a splash of diet sprite and ice. My wife loves it, too - and she's a serious wine snob/enthusiast.
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I'm probably wrong here, but here are my calculations:

1.070 - 0.999 = 0.071
0.071 * 131 = 9.3% ABV
9.3% * 0.8 (SG of pure ethanol) + (100% - 9.3%) * 1.0 (SG of pure water) = 9.3% * 0.8 + 90.7% * 1.0 = 0.9814
0.999 - 0.9814 = 0.0176 points of solids left in solution (mostly sugar, probably)

Sugar is 40 pts/lb/gal, so 17.6 pts / 40 pts/lb/gal = 0.44 lbs/gal of sugar left in solution. 0.44 lbs/gal = 52 g/L (according to Unit Converter - Digital Dutch Unit Converter), so you've got ~50 g/L of sugar in there.
 
I am on the edge of my seat waiting for this to finish. After sampling it when I took my readings last week I was ready to bottle it then. I plan to take another reading tomorrow and if it has not changed much, bottle it. Half and half for the carbed vs. non-carbed.

The only thing I really messed up on was forgetting to take the OG so I am going to have no idea what the ABV is.

Is there anyway to calculate to OG using good old mathematics and measurements taken before? If not that is fine as I can ball park it based off the OG's others have got.
 
Hegh said:
I'm probably wrong here, but here are my calculations:

1.070 - 0.999 = 0.071
0.071 * 131 = 9.3% ABV
9.3% * 0.8 (SG of pure ethanol) + (100% - 9.3%) * 1.0 (SG of pure water) = 9.3% * 0.8 + 90.7% * 1.0 = 0.9814
0.999 - 0.9814 = 0.0176 points of solids left in solution (mostly sugar, probably)

Sugar is 40 pts/lb/gal, so 17.6 pts / 40 pts/lb/gal = 0.44 lbs/gal of sugar left in solution. 0.44 lbs/gal = 52 g/L (according to Unit Converter - Digital Dutch Unit Converter), so you've got ~50 g/L of sugar in there.
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Awesome. That sounds high for how it tastes, but it suggests that I need to degas a sample and re-measure the FG.

Thanks!
 
i plan on making a five gallon batch of this on sunday to be served the second week of september. would that be ok?
 
My first batch I bottled and carbed it after 2 months and tried it after three weeks and it was very drinkable.I tried a few bottles the other day at 4 months and it was better but in answer to your question I think you'll be ok but try to save a bottle for a few more months at least to see the difference. Providing you're bottling and not kegging that is.
 
Mine is 5 weeks old and I have been drawing off 'samples' for about 1.5 weeks. It's really great stuff. I have about 4.5 gallons left and plan on bottling all of it next weekend (6 weeks old). I also plan of starting another batch as soon as the carboy is clean.
 
deepsouth said:
what effect would adding yeast nutrient add under these circumstances?
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my best guess would be that it will get rid of some of the rhino farts that is associated with apfelwein, might even speed up fermentation but not sure about that, the important thing is to bottle it when its clear, give it time, that's what i learned the hard way. i bottled mine too soon, its great after a few weeks in bottle but there is a bit too much sediment in the bottles. next time i'll give mine more time.
 
Is it ok if one uses normal sugar mixed with dark brown sugar instead of corn sugar? The yeast came in a small little bottle, I'd say like a shot glass, is that enough for 10 liters of Apple Juice? Did the liquid yeast survive the journey across the desert?

We are in Yemen you see :)
 
I made a batch of EdWort's apfelwein thinking that I would never get to taste the real deal. 6 months and a corny keg later I am in Frankfurt drinking their "most famous" apfelwein, and... I gotta say that my(EdWort's recipe) apfelwein came out better than the stuff I have ordered at restaurants (but the stuff in restaurants is way cheap compared to beer).
 
deepsouth said:
i plan on making a five gallon batch of this on sunday to be served the second week of september. would that be ok?
Click to expand...

Last batch I racked after a month and added finings (Bentonite, Gelatin works too) to a secondary, cleared it right up really clear. If I was gonna drink it in two months I would definitely do that... 4 weeks pri, 1-2 weeks sec with finings, 2-3 weeks in bottles.
 
I went to the home brew store and they were out of the pound bags of dextrose so he went in back got "two" pounds worth of smaller bags. so fast forward i put all the bags in the carboy and then i realize he gave 3 pounds instead of 2. :mad: Will this have an adverse effect on the wine? should i worry about it? will it effect the taste? alcohol content? :drunk: the batch size is 5.5 gallons i have a 6 gallon glass carboy didnt want to waste the space.
 

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