Bucket not Carboy

so theres the sticky, i have been researching this site on a while now before i started my cider and have gotten a smorgasbord of information.

i started my cider yesterday with some safale 04 yeast, some raw sugar and a gallon of flash pasterized cider (ryans cider.Hood River, OR).. i sanitized my goods and no is its sitting my basement in a 1.5 gallon ferment bucket and not a carboy..

am im completely screwed here since i cannot see the progress of the cider, or am i ok..??

i figured that i would leave it for a 2-3weeks before i started the second prim.

Give it time! It will happen. DON'T touch it leave it alone. Everyone goes through thhis the first time!

I think you should be fine.

If you enjoy drinking hard cider, you should check out the recipe for Graff posted at this website. It's amazing!

thanks for the reply... saw there was a ton of threads after the post, just didnt know how to search the site... thanks for the tip, i'll let it sit for a few weeks... cheers

I'm in the middle of brewing my first cider too. You should just leave it for at least a week, then rack it into a carboy, and get it off the yeast cake. The majority of the fermentation should be done by then.
I left mine for a week, racked it into another bucket for another week, and just the other day (day14) racked it into a 5 gallon carboy, which was filled to the top, and I had some extra for tasting.

the thing that im a little freaked out about is that i have a gallon brewing and most of the post here people are brewin 5 gallons... i have a 2-5gallon carboys but since it was the 1st time i didnt want to mess up 5 gallons worth of cider..if all works i will brew the 5 gallon.... it seems like im doing the right things here so far.. this site is a life saver... i have this 1 gallon glass jug i will probably rack it to, also thinking of crashing it during the 2nd prim...

I would go ahead and start another one. 1.5 gal is not that much. You're already waiting, might as well make it a full batch. But that's just me.

im making my first batch 5 gallons worth

Beer I do 5-Gal.

Cider I like to do smaller batches. I do the cider in between beer batches, and if I have a gallon or two going it keeps me feeling like Im doing something... Plus I like to experiment and hate ruining 5 gallons of anything

i figure for the 5 gallon i will be more confident when i know the outcome...... for siphoning the cider, anyone have any good tip. i know sanitation is the name of the game, and using your mouth to siphon cant be the best way to do it, friend said a pump possibly.

S04 usually goes through a fairly predictable ferment pattern where it builds up over a couple of days, then ferments hard and then starts trailing off. Even if you have it in a bucket that you cant see into, you can check the airlock to get a sense of what stage it is in.

Once the ferment starts trailing off is when you want to check it if you want to stop it before all the residual sugar is gone.

You can use an autosiphon. your LHBS should have one

Skibum- An auto siphon works really nice and it easy to handle. If you google "Fallbright" you can pick them up cheap. I think they are about 15 bucks.

skibumhenry9 said:

i figure for the 5 gallon i will be more confident when i know the outcome...... for siphoning the cider, anyone have any good tip. i know sanitation is the name of the game, and using your mouth to siphon cant be the best way to do it, friend said a pump possibly.

Click to expand...

This may be frowned on and I know it gets the cider shook up and mixed with more air than should be but I bought a $4 plastic kerosene siphon ( new ) and washed it, sterilized it with bleach and it has been working great to fill bottles before capping them. I just try to minimize the amount aeration as much as possible. Of course it is just a cheap fix and I will upgrade later but for now it works decent and I didnt spend much on it.

racking cane and tube works great for siphoning. Clean, sanitize, and then fill with water from the tap. Place wand of cane into bucket/carboy, and then let tube flow into lower container. Starts great

for the money, its hard to beat an auto siphon. They are real easy to sanitize also, you can put both ends in a small glass of sanitizer solution, pump, and the sanitizer will circulate through the whole thing. Pump for a minute and your done, with just a small amount of sanitizer

Also on subject of sanitation, during cider season I turn my hot water heater up to 150F. That way you know that the hot water will be close to 100 percent sterile from sitting in the hot tank and you use scalding water to rinse after sanitizing. I used to go to 160 until a few seasons ago when I started switching to better bottles. 160 will warp a BB