First crack at making cider....

Harleycodr said:

It's been fermenting since May 3rd at room temp.

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Ah, yeah you could have left it in primary for a few more days if it was reading at 1.30. I wouldn't rack into secondary until it fell below 1.010, but that's just me.

You should still be perfectly fine though. Once your fermentation stops in secondary make sure you don't get any of the sediment at the bottom when you rack it off.

Whether or not you need to rack to a secondary is dependent but for future batches I would always avoid transferring a cider (or beer) before it has reached its final gravity.

i make a ton of cider every year. all of it in either the glass or plastic 1 gallon jugs the cider comes in at store. for what its worth, here's my general MO.

i like to use a bit extra sugar (generally just white/brown sugar) at beginning to get ABV up a bit, maybe in the 5%ish range. then ferment- i have a few favorites at present, bavarian hefe yeast, bavarian lager yeast, and cider house select (ferments from 50 to almost 70F).

i use biofine clear (or you can use gelatin) to clear and help drop yeast when i cold crash to stop fermentation, typically when i get to 1.010ish. thats a bit on the sweet side, but CO2 will create acidity which will balance out the sweetness and make it just seem nice and crisp. (i also think if you let it go to full dryness you lose all apple flavor)

as for carbonation- i now use my draft system as typical for beer. but if you dont have that, what i used to do is bottle the cider, heat pastuerize at 180 for just a few minutes (per temp-x-time table), then carefully cool to room temp. once pastuerized, you can use the little carbonation drops and carbing yeast.

you get crisp, slightly sweet and sparkly cider. definitely try using lager yeasts, i find they can do an excellent job of letting apple flavor come through.

if natural carbing is still leaving your cider a bit one dimensional, you can try adding some malic acid to cider to help get some crispness. (or acid blend if thats all you can find)

if you use unfiltered cider as base, you can use some pectic enzyme to clear up the cider and drop some of the gunk. works best warm, so add it to cider, shake/swirl the hell out of it and maybe let it sit a day at room temp (with sanitized airlock) before you pitch yeast.

if you want flavored cider, just figure out where you need to end fermentation to account for the sugar you will add back with your flavored juice. not sure how well you can naturally carb a flavored cider as i assume yeast will eat up all the blueberry/cherry/etc sugars, but try it and see what happens.

SanPancho said:

as for carbonation- i now use my draft system as typical for beer. but if you dont have that, what i used to do is bottle the cider, heat pastuerize at 180 for just a few minutes (per temp-x-time table), then carefully cool to room temp. once pastuerized, you can use the little carbonation drops and carbing yeast.

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I don't get how this would work. I assume you have stopped fermentation prior to FG for a bit of sweetness. You then pasteurize the cider to kill the yeast. You then cool the cider and add carbonation drop and carbing yeast. If you're adding yeast back to the bottle there is no point pasteurizing because the bottling yeast will ferment all remaining sugars anyway.

Ah!! yeah, sorry. i forgot to add in the part about dropping xylitol/splenda. as you will see i noted at very bottom about adding juice flavors, you cant add yeast for natural carb without running risk of going to FG. you're correct.

but- what you can do is use a yeast that has a medium/low attenuation rate. so if the yeast is rated at 80%, and your OG is 1.050, then in theory it should stop at around 1.010. but again- that only works for still cider. there's no natural carbonation without possibly losing the remaining sugars- unless you go with non-fermentable sugars like xylitol/splenda.

one thing you might consider is buying a small setup to carbonate. you dont need to drop a ton of cash to get a CO2 tank and all that stuff. there's something called a carbonator cap. $13 with shipping. and $25-30 bucks for a CO2 injector. (its basically a nitrous cracker for CO2) you put the cider in a regular soda bottle, cap it, then gas it up with the injector. if your cider is cold and you shake the bottle it'll be ready to go in like 10-15 minutes.

you can look either of them up on you tube - the cap and the injector. that's basically the only way to have carbonated cider that is not at FG or has been flavored with fruit juice. it also works great if you have beer that has gone flat or didnt fully carbonate in bottle. its a great little toy if you cant go with full CO2 tank setup.

obviously, i veer towards carbonated cider. still just doesnt do it for me....

SanPancho said:

Ah!! yeah, sorry. i forgot to add in the part about dropping xylitol/splenda. as you will see i noted at very bottom about adding juice flavors, you cant add yeast for natural carb without running risk of going to FG. you're correct.

but- what you can do is use a yeast that has a medium/low attenuation rate. so if the yeast is rated at 80%, and your OG is 1.050, then in theory it should stop at around 1.010. but again- that only works for still cider. there's no natural carbonation without possibly losing the remaining sugars- unless you go with non-fermentable sugars like xylitol/splenda.

one thing you might consider is buying a small setup to carbonate. you dont need to drop a ton of cash to get a CO2 tank and all that stuff. there's something called a carbonator cap. $13 with shipping. and $25-30 bucks for a CO2 injector. (its basically a nitrous cracker for CO2) you put the cider in a regular soda bottle, cap it, then gas it up with the injector. if your cider is cold and you shake the bottle it'll be ready to go in like 10-15 minutes.

you can look either of them up on you tube - the cap and the injector. that's basically the only way to have carbonated cider that is not at FG or has been flavored with fruit juice. it also works great if you have beer that has gone flat or didnt fully carbonate in bottle. its a great little toy if you cant go with full CO2 tank setup.

obviously, i veer towards carbonated cider. still just doesnt do it for me....

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If hes been brewing 20yrs or whatever and plans to contine with beer and/or cider, a 5 gallong kegging setup is only about $200-$230 and is money well spent.

SanPancho said:

as for carbonation- i now use my draft system as typical for beer. but if you dont have that, what i used to do is bottle the cider, heat pastuerize at 180 for just a few minutes (per temp-x-time table), then carefully cool to room temp. once pastuerized, you can use the little carbonation drops and carbing yeast.

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Sorry mang,but this is nonsense. Bottle, then pasteurize, then add carb drops and yeast?

Once the bottles are capped and pasteurized, you gonna open em up and add priming sugar? And more yeast?

That's just wrong.

Maylar said:

Sorry mang,but this is nonsense. Bottle, then pasteurize, then add carb drops and yeast?

Once the bottles are capped and pasteurized, you gonna open em up and add priming sugar? And more yeast?

That's just wrong.

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I asked the same thing and his / her reply is directly below my previous post.

I've had a 5 gallon setup since I started this in '94. This cider or apple wine is an experiement; I didn't want to go big on my first try. This way I have a chance to see if it worked or not. I took a gravity reading yesterday and it has come down to 1.020 and isn't super active but my airlock still gives me an occasional gurgle.

Love this thread - it's been very educational.

PS I'm not a he I'm a she. And yes, I ride a Harley hence the screen name (and not on the back).