Sour Diesel

Ingredients

• 8 Campden Tablets
• 2 Teaspoon Pectic Enzyme
• 1 Pack Côte des Blancs Yeast
• 2 Packs White Labs English Cider Yeast
• 4 Bushel Crabapples
• 1 Bushels Granny Smith Apples

Materials

• 2 Air Locks
• 1 10 Gallon Carboy
• 2 Five Gallon Carboys
• 1 One Gallon Stainless Steel Pot

Instructions

• Fill each five gallon carboy with three gallons of freshly pressed Crabapple Cider.
• Add three Campden tablets to each carboy.
• Stir or shake each carboy until all Campden tablets have dissolved completely.
• Allow both carboys to sit for at least 12 hours.
• Add one teaspoon Pectic Enzyme to each carboy.
• Heat one gallon of freshly pressed Crabapple Cider to approximately 80F.
• Add two packs of White Labs English Cider Yeast to the heated cider and stir until the majority of the yeast has been absorbed.
• Allow the heated cider and yeast solution to sit for 24 hours.
• Pour one half of the yeast pitch into each carboy and fasten an air lock.
• Allow the carboys to ferment for 10-15 days.
• Rack the fermented cider and return it to the carboys.
• Add two Campden tablets to two gallons of freshly pressed Crab Apple Cider.
• Stir or shake the freshly pressed Granny Smith Apple Cider until all Campden tablets have dissolved completely.
• Heat both gallons of freshly pressed Granny Smith Apple Cider to approximately 80F.
• Add one pack of Côte des Blancs Yeast to the heated cider and stir until the majority of the yeast has been absorbed.
• Allow the heated cider and yeast solution to sit for 24 hours.
• Pour one half of the yeast pitch into each carboy and fasten an air lock.
• Allow the carboys to ferment once more for 10-15 days.
• Rack the fermented cider once more and pour it into the 10 gallon carboy.
• Seal 10 gallon carboy tightly.
• Allow the cider to age for at least 8 months.
• Keg aged cider and carbonate.

Add three Campden tablets to each carboy.
Add one teaspoon Pectic Enzyme to each carboy.

Click to expand...

you going to wait at least 12 hours between these two steps?
Have you thought about a starter instead of dumping the yeast on 80 deg juice? why not just put it in the carboy if you are going to put it in that much juice anyway?

Recipe fixed to reflect wait time between those two steps.

im a newb to campden tablets... what do they do in this process above?

They kill off anything that might be living in the must. Bacteria, wild yeasts, that sorta thing.

ChshreCat said:

They kill off anything that might be living in the must. Bacteria, wild yeasts, that sorta thing.

Click to expand...

so im planning on bottling some of the edworts apfelwein that im making as still wine... so i just pop a couple crushed campdens into it with some sorbate that was mentioned elsewhere and leave it sit for a day or so and then bottle? can i also cold condition it at the same time or does that even matter?

Campden tablets at the end of fermenting are generally for killing off your yeast to avoid fermentation in the bottle if you're going to sweeten it. It protects you from bottle bombs that way. If you're not going to add any sugar before bottling, then you probably don't need to do it, so long as your hydrometer readings show fermentation is done.

How did this turn out?

Excellent. I bottled half and used my freezer to "fortify" half. It was just excellent.