CranApple Cider 2012

Started a new batch of cider yesterday, my first brew in about a year. It's my third go at a cider, but it's the first time I've used fresh cider instead of just buying a bunch of bottles of cider from the grocery store.

A local nursery here in town does an annual Apple Festival, and they had a cider press going, so I took the opportunity. Picked out about 75 pounds of apples and had someone run them through the press. Brought the ~5 gallons of juice home and pasteurized it in two batches. In the second batch, I added a bottle of cranberry juice and 4 cinnamon sticks (similar to what I did on my last batch).

I put everything into a carboy and pitched my yeast, saw no activity last night, but when I woke up this morning the stuff was going insane! The kreusen had erupted up into my airlock, and was foaming out the top!



:rockin:
I've never had such an active fermentation before, not sure if it's a result of the fresh juice, or because I actually got my wort down to a hospitable temperature before pitching my yeast. Either way, I can't wait to give this beast a try. Need to come up with a good name for it, too, if I'm going to keep making this every year...

Sounds delectable

What was your OG?

I tend to get a kreusen with cider. Yeast selection does make a difference on how much of one. Wyeast sweet mead blows out my airlock, while the Nottingham has a modest kreusen with cider and none with applejuice.

I used a Wyeast Cider yeast (4766? don't have my notes with me). I haven't brewed enough batches to start getting experimental with my yeast yet.

The OG was 1.044, which seems low to me, but I'm okay with that. There's no added sugar. Last time I did cider I added some Splenda before bottling, so I might do that again. Just have to wait and see how it tastes when it's time to bottle it.

That SG isn't out of line considering I usually have fresh pressed cider OG at 1.051 to 1.061. Adding the cran with a lower gravity would take it down a bit.

Still should make something decent I would think.

I usually add the cranberry with concentrate so there isn't any lowering of the SG.

I am having a hard time finding a better cider yeast then Nottingham. I keep doing gallon batches with the same mixture comparing Nottingham to other yeasts and they are never quite as good.

I always see Nottingham recommended here, but my LHBS doesn't seem to carry it. Can you describe what the difference is with the Nottingham? As I say, i haven't experimented with different yeasts yet, so I can't tell what would make one better than another for a specific recipe.

Checked the gravity on this today, after noticing that it has completely stopped bubbling. I got a reading of 0.996, which surprised me (didn't think a beer could get below 1.000..?). I went ahead and racked it to a bottling bucket, where I'll give it a few days before adding some potassium metabisulfate.

It tastes really bitter and dry, so I'm hoping it mellows out some in the bottles. I'd rather not add any artificial sweetener to it like I did with last year's batch. I'll check again in a few days and see.

Well, this cider has not aged well so far. It's been in bottles for about a week after about a month fermenting. Still smells great, but the flavor is really not what I was hoping for. It's oddly watery, and has a not-quite-vinegary bitterness to it which I first noticed when I was taking those gravity readings at the beginning of November. I kept hoping that it would get better in the fermenter, but it never did. Now I'm hoping it will get better in the bottles, but I don't have high hopes.

I did add some Splenda to it before bottling, and added some carb tabs to the bottles hoping for some good action there, but neither seemed to help - there's still no carbonation in the bottles, and the splenda just gave it a kind of weirdly-sweet taste. I think I'm going to avoid using it in the future.

The biggest disappointment here is that I went the extra mile with this batch and got fresh apple cider, and now I don't even want to drink this stuff. Not sure what exactly I did wrong here, other than maybe I let the yeast go too long on the juice. Would it have helped if I'd stopped fermentation closer to 1.01, instead of letting it get all the way down to .996?

What mix of apples did you use?

It was 75 pounds of apples, in roughly this blend:

45% Pippin
20% Gala
15% Macintosh
15% Granny Smith
5% Gold Rush

I also added a half-gallon of Cranberry juice, and some cinnamon sticks in the boil.

I kept some out, unfermented, as a flavor comparison, and it's a fantastic cider blend. Very full-flavored and not too tart. I'm surprised it came out so dry on this end.

Okay! Got a second opinion on the cider, and it seems that it hasn't gone vinegar after all, it's just extremely dry. We mixed the hard cider with some of the unfermented cider from the same batch (at about a 3:1 ratio), and it tasted perfect - the apple flavors really came out, and I could taste the cinnamon again.

So, I think all I'll need to do next time is to backsweeten with reserves of the cider instead of just adding splenda. But the problem then becomes, what's the best way to make sure that the yeast is all dead before backsweetening?

You keep saying bitter, but I think what you may mean is acidity or tartness. It is very normal for a dry cider to seem very tart. As far as the apple flavor being absent, that only means the cider is too young. After several months the acidity will level off, and the apple flavor will return. I think you may be taking a little too rushed of an approach.

i would put it away for 6 months try a bottle and put it away for another 6 months.

Wow, really? I had no idea cider would take that long to mature! The first two batches I made a couple years ago (using store-bought cider, not fresh) were perfectly drinkable right away without much work needed, so I keep thinking that's how all cider should be.

But yeah, I'm happy to put it aside for six months if it means it'll be drinkable then. Thanks!

some are fast some are slow, i do most of my ciders to dry then bottle prime and let them sit for at least 6 months, they mellow out nicely the longer it sits the better it gets if you don't sweeten.

dr_al said:

i would put it away for 6 months try a bottle and put it away for another 6 months.

Click to expand...

Exactly. A week is not enough time. A couple of months minimum. 6 months to a year is more like it!