First Time Trying ...

Hi,

A friend and i are trying our hand at cider for the first time.

Hopefully you will be able to guide us if we have pointed ourselves in the wrong direction.

Our process was as follows:

(Obviously Sterilisation has been carried out on all equipment)

* Juiced (in a Kitchen Juicer) Breaburn Apples (NZ Type, sweet to eat)
* In the Brew Bucket we have 5L of Juice and the OG Level was 1.045
* Added i small packet (7g) of Cider Yeast.
* fitted the Air Lock and has been bubbling away nicely over night.

The process i am planning on (please interject if you think i am in the wrong)

* once bubbling has nearly stopped (maybe 1 week) take Gravity reading to ascertain the ABV %
* Syphon into Secondary fermentation bottles.
* put in a room temperature cupboard for approx 1 month until it goes clear.
* Bottle with a small amount of Castor Sugar into the bottom of the bottles and cap.
* put into the fridge to stop the fermentation (or hot water ?)

your help would be greatly appreciated, the initial attempt is to see if we can actually do it, then we will try and 'tune' the batch for taste and % levels etc.

Thank you in Advance.

Dai

it sounds about right to me, except that it will probably not have fermented out in a week. check the og to determine if you still have sugar in there, and you can always leave it in primary for a bit longer. are your secondary bottles fitted with airlocks or closed tight?
the only reason you will need to stop fermentation is if you have enough sugar left to blow up the bottles, if you ferment to dry and prime with something in the order of 9g/L you should be fine without having to heat kill the yeast.

just realised that i had asked this ...

ok the cider was a DISASTER, it tasted like Vinegar at Best ???

i really dont know what went wrong with it?