Hey everyone! I'm midway through brewing my very first cider. I happened by our local orchard the day that they were pressing apples and couldn't help myself. I brought home 5 gallons, added ~1.5 lb of dark brown sugar, and 1/4 tsp of potassium metabisulfite and let it sit for 24 hours.
Then I added two sachets of ec-1118 champagne yeast, and let it do its thing. It worked fantastically well. Three weeks later fermentation has finished as far as I can tell (it appears to be hovering around .99 SG). It has a fantastic clean, tart flavor that will be incredible once it's sparkling.
Based on the sample I pulled it appears to be largely cleared up, but there's still some grogans floating around. Should I rack it to a secondary for awhile? Can I let it sur lie age for a little bit since champagne yeast tends to be ok with such a thing? Can I go ahead and bottle it?
I've never really made a cider before and since it's turned out pretty much exactly as I hoped it would (by this point anyway) I'd hate to do something that screws up the batch. Any suggestions on next steps would really be appreciated.
Then I added two sachets of ec-1118 champagne yeast, and let it do its thing. It worked fantastically well. Three weeks later fermentation has finished as far as I can tell (it appears to be hovering around .99 SG). It has a fantastic clean, tart flavor that will be incredible once it's sparkling.
Based on the sample I pulled it appears to be largely cleared up, but there's still some grogans floating around. Should I rack it to a secondary for awhile? Can I let it sur lie age for a little bit since champagne yeast tends to be ok with such a thing? Can I go ahead and bottle it?
I've never really made a cider before and since it's turned out pretty much exactly as I hoped it would (by this point anyway) I'd hate to do something that screws up the batch. Any suggestions on next steps would really be appreciated.
