duffrecords
Member
I bought 5 gallons of fresh apple cider from a cider mill up in Oak Glen, CA and decided to follow EdWort's apfelwein recipe. The only variations I made to his recipe were the addition of 5 Campden tablets (erring on the side of caution) and the creation of a yeast starter instead of pitching the yeast dry. The cider itself had a specific gravity of 1.070 and after adding two pounds of dextrose, it increased to 1.080. I'm expecting a final ABV of about 10.5%.
However, the fermentation got off to a very sluggish start so I examined the jugs more closely and realized the cider contained less than 0.1% of sodium benzoate. A couple of days later, I built up another massive yeast starter by gradually increasing its volume over the course of a day and added that to the primary. The fermentation sped up a bit but still was noticeably slower than other wines I've made. Three weeks later, it's slowing to a crawl around 1.021, just over 7.5% ABV.
I know stabilizer doesn't actually kill yeast (it interferes with yeast reproduction) so I'm assuming the yeast cells are gradually dying off but not being replaced with new ones. I'm thinking about creating another starter, growing the population as large as I can, and adding that in to finish the job. Any recommendations?
I'm also concerned about transferring the apfelwein into a secondary. I wasn't expecting the fermentation to take this long, and three weeks in the primary with all that headspace is probably asking for trouble. It is beginning to develop an unusual yeasty, bready flavor, sort of like when I made a batch of kilju with turbo yeast earlier this year. I'm not sure if that's because of the benzoate or exposure to oxygen. It's not bad but it's not what I expect from a commercial cider. Perhaps this is what everyone means when they say apfelwein is an acquired taste.
A final concern is carbonation. Ideally, I'd like to bottle condition it and make it sparkling. If it's having this much trouble with the stabilizer, what if I bottle it with priming sugar and it just stops, leaving me with an overly sweet beverage? What about the idea of bottling it before it's fully dry? I don't know what sort of gravity would be appropriate in order to avoid bottle bombs. That happened to a bottle of homemade sangria in my kitchen once and I never want to have to clean up a mess like that again.
However, the fermentation got off to a very sluggish start so I examined the jugs more closely and realized the cider contained less than 0.1% of sodium benzoate. A couple of days later, I built up another massive yeast starter by gradually increasing its volume over the course of a day and added that to the primary. The fermentation sped up a bit but still was noticeably slower than other wines I've made. Three weeks later, it's slowing to a crawl around 1.021, just over 7.5% ABV.
I know stabilizer doesn't actually kill yeast (it interferes with yeast reproduction) so I'm assuming the yeast cells are gradually dying off but not being replaced with new ones. I'm thinking about creating another starter, growing the population as large as I can, and adding that in to finish the job. Any recommendations?
I'm also concerned about transferring the apfelwein into a secondary. I wasn't expecting the fermentation to take this long, and three weeks in the primary with all that headspace is probably asking for trouble. It is beginning to develop an unusual yeasty, bready flavor, sort of like when I made a batch of kilju with turbo yeast earlier this year. I'm not sure if that's because of the benzoate or exposure to oxygen. It's not bad but it's not what I expect from a commercial cider. Perhaps this is what everyone means when they say apfelwein is an acquired taste.
A final concern is carbonation. Ideally, I'd like to bottle condition it and make it sparkling. If it's having this much trouble with the stabilizer, what if I bottle it with priming sugar and it just stops, leaving me with an overly sweet beverage? What about the idea of bottling it before it's fully dry? I don't know what sort of gravity would be appropriate in order to avoid bottle bombs. That happened to a bottle of homemade sangria in my kitchen once and I never want to have to clean up a mess like that again.