My first time

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jtvinny

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Well it's all your fault. I spent most of the day on this forum and could not resist trying a cider. I am currently on my second batch of beer but figured that trying a small batch of cider could not be too much of a waste if I screwed it up so...

On the way out the door to a dinner party tonight I saw some leftover blueberries and blackberries from a cobbler that the wife made. While running into the store to purchase ice cream for said cobbler I grabbed a 2 gallon refillable water jug, a bottle of apple juice, a bottle of apple punch (apple orange, cherry, grape juice) and a bottle of cherry cranberry juice. On the way home I was able to grab some champagne yeast so I could throw it together this evening.

To the fruit I added 1/2 cup water, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup table sugar, and 1/4 cup red hots and boiled it. I then threw that in my recently modified and sterilized water jug, pitched the yeast and left it with some kind words. And now the wait...

I guess the only question I have is- Did I leave too much head room for a primary? (See below) The reason I left it so low is because the front and back of the jug are higher than the middle where the lid is, I didn't want the gas to rise up to the front or back and force liquid out my blow-off. I can top it off a little more if need be or next time I will just drill straight into the plastic at the front and tilt the jug back a little so that I when I rack it into the secondary the sediment will not plug the spigot. Please let me know what you think.

cider002.jpg

The tubing fits in the spigot for bottling or racking into the secondary. Note the humps in the front and back of the lid.

cider001.jpg

The fixins'- I only used about half of the last one and seven of the packets of Splenda, I will add more at bottling if need be.

cider006.jpg

In good company- My Stout bubbling away next to it. :tank:
 
Uh-oh... does that water jug have a #7 on the bottom? If so don't use it again, it's leeching bad, bad chemicals into the stuff you brew in it. That's why a lot of them say "Refill only with water."
 
I looked up #2 bottles and it says that it is a high density polethylene. I think that #1 is PET (what Better Bottles are made of) but how safe is it to use the #2 bottles?
 
1 and 2 are supposed to be OK. Eventually I'm going to switch to all glass though...
 

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