Cider is 14 days old, not sure what to do next

Hi. This is a great forum. Thanks.

This is the first year I have my own cider press, a really nice one. Two weeks ago I pressed fresh local apples, a mix of reds varieties and goldens.

My cousin, a winemaker, brought over a large (5 gallon?) bottle, and a rubber stopper contraption at the top which allows the cider to breathe. We poured the cider in (about half), and everything seems to be off to a good start.

The cider has sat at room temp for 14 days. At the bottom, a lot of sediment (about 2 inches). In the middle is a cloudy but beautiful rich golden cider. At the top is a thin layer of scuzzy material. My cousin said it would bubble way up, but it didn't. The bubbles are fairly small. Not sure why. There is a small amount of mold.

My cousin gave me a package of preservative, he said to mix that with water and pour it in, wait for a bit then siphon the middle cider out.

I wonder if I can put the cider into jars and sterilize it in boiling water (same as home canning). I want to bottle this without using chemical preservatives. Is it possible?

All advice highly appreciated. Thanks!

Can you post a pic? That layer might just be krausen

Hi. Thanks. I'll get a picture and try to post it.

Here is a picture I took. The camera isn't the best, and light a bit weak, but I hope you can see the general idea. This is after I hoisted it up slowly to take a picture, so some debris started moving around.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/40493031@N07/3998798606/

What do you think?

im far from a pro but seems to me that you might have wanted to use a smaller carboy. The more air inbetween your airlock and the juice the more room you have for molds and stuff to be in the bottle.

Also did you clean and sanitize the equipment before starting?

Thats really all I can tell from the distance of the picture, would you be able to get a closer shot of the "mold"?

Hi. Thanks. I had a close look just now. It doesn't look like mold on the top layer, just crud. Bubbles but not big bubbles, mostly little ones. As of today though there are two large bubbles. The picture shows a yellow color in the crud but that is just due to poor light and editing. It is not really yellow.

The jar was clean when I started. My cousin gave it to me clean and I rinsed it. I could have done more, I suppose.

So in terms of timing, should I siphon this today?

Is it ever a good idea to put it in a sealed canning jar and immerse that in boiling water for 20 minutes (as in canning food?). Will that stop fermentation and allow me to keep it on the shelf in the pantry?

Thanks.

I plan on siphoning and cold-crashing my batch once my ABV level is around where I want it. If I were you I would either get a hydrometer and test or take a taste of the cider.

It looks fine to me, but it's far from completion. Give it a couple more weeks.

Hi. Thanks a lot for your comment. I wasn't sure how long to let it ferment. I'll give it two more weeks. Then post here about progress. I still wonder what the best way is to bottle it without the use of preservatives.

I think that without knowing what the gravity is, you should wait until the bubbles drop and then bottle. I had a cider with a thin layer of bubbles (krausen) for a couple months. I didn't take a gravity reading, but knowing how much I can drink before feeling drunk, I'd say that the ABV was around 15-20%.

As for bottling without preservatives, the alcohol is a preservative. Just make sure the bottles are clean and sanitized before bottling.

wait a week or so, hit it with some bentonite, let it sit another couple weeks or so rerack to a secondary and revisit it in 6 months - a year. Just dont let the airlock go dry

15-20% ABV? sweet, do you have the recipe still?

The cider looks ok, although it would be better if it did not have so much headspace in your carboy.

Did you add yeast to this or was this a natural ferment? Either way, if it has been fermenting two weeks, I would taste it and see how it tastes. Natural ferments can get a little weird tasting when they drop below 1.020 or so. Cultured yeast usually ferments out pretty clean, but if it ferments out all the sugars, you wont have much left except for the apple acids, which take a lot of aging to mellow.

If it tastes good now, I would recommend cold crashing it (search forum for 'cold crash' for more info). You wont be able to bottle carb it, but it will taste better. See if you can find a 3 gallon carboy to cold crash it in.

The other option would be to let it ferment all the way out, in which case you can bottle carbonate it, but you wont be able to drink it for quite some time. Since you have your own press and its still early in the season, I'd advise cold crashing this batch so you can drink it now even though it wont be carbonated (or else keg carbonate it if you have kegs) and fill your carboy up to the top next time for something you can age.

My cider just hit the 14 day mark too. Here is what I have done so far. Both 5 gallon batches were dosed with 5 crushed campden tablets and allowed to sit for 48 hours.
Batch #1 - 5 gallons fresh pressed cider, no added sugar, Wyeast cider yeast packet. OG of about 1.044.
Batch #2 - 5 gallons fresh pressed cider, followed the caramel apple recipe in the cider recipe section. OG of about 1.050

Both batches were allowed to ferment 7 days then racked off the yeast cake and malolactic enzyme packets were added to each bucket.

Batch #3 was 5 gallons of freshed cider, 1.5# honey and 3/4 cup molasses were added and mixed into the cider, treated with 5 campden tablets and allowed to sit for 24 hours. This batch was poured directly onto the plain cider yeast cake. OG. of about 1.052.

Now at the 14 day mark on Batch #1 & #2, both were racked off the lees and into 5 gallon secondary carboys. Batch #3 (at 7 days)was racked off the yeast cake and onto the malolactic dosed lees from the plain cider.

I had some leftover cider from both Batch #1 & #2, and transfered the excess into 2 liter pop bottles, even though they were only 3/4 full, and capped them and put them in the fridge for taste testing. The regular cider was OK, but rather unremarkable. Haven't tasted the caramel apple cider yet.

My plans are to let them finish fermenting and clearing in the secondaries. Possibly racking them again in 30 days. Not sure on that one yet. Eventually I would like to split these batches and bottle half as is. The other half I plan on treating with campden and potasium sorbate (?) and backsweeten with either plain sugar or honey.

Any other suggestions or comments ??

Hope this gives a few more ideas for the current thread.

Is campden recommended with cider? I'm doing my first batch of apfelwein right now and I wasn't planning on adding it. I was going to cold crash it and possibly backsweeten with more juice if it came out too dry. Is there a chance it could start fermenting again at that point? I don't want any exploding bottles.

The initial campden innoculation is to inhibit any wild yeasties from getting a foothold on the sugars in the fresh cider. From what I have read this is only needed if you cannot pitch your yeast promptly. I was grinding and pressing my own apples, and it took me 3 to 4 hours to get a full 5 gallons of cider.
Also, I had read that the potassium sorbate works better with campden, to inihibit, or kill the yeast, so you can backsweeten without concern of a fermentation starting up again. This info came from the wine area. I just have too many things going on, so I forget where I read things, but that is I am planning on doing.

If you are planning to use sorbate to stabilize, pour a small glass of cider and drop a pinch of the sorbate in first, to make sure you are OK with the taste. Or put a little bit on your tongue. The taste is not really bad, but it is noticeable and does not go away over time. I dont much care for it, but some people are OK with it. Cold crashing is more work, but the results are cleaner IMHO.