Time to clear?

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Tristan

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Well, my second ever batch is doing it's thing. I hope.

After a week in a fermentation bucket, I racked to a glass carboy. I used a racking cane, to minimize my lees and such.

It's been about 3 weeks since then, and I'm not even a little bit clear.

Granted, this time around I used 2 gallons of orchard cider, and 3 gallons of clear juice, but I seem to recall more settling at this point in my last batch (all juice).

At what point should I be worried?

My yeast was Wyeast English Cider Yeast, if that helps at all.
 
cider takes FOREVER to clear.. if you heated any of it up it may very well never clear... I had a batch made with cider that sat for 3 months and didn't hardly clear.. I finally decided that it tasted good and I didn't really care what it looked like so I bottled it.
my Apfelwein on the otherhand that is only juice.. took 4 weeks from start to clear..
Unfilterd juice (not cider) takes around 2 months or so to clear once you rack and it stops fermenting.. in my expirence.. but then I don't ever heat it up cause that can set the pectin and it won't clear without a clarifying agent..

SpamDog
 
One thing to make sure you don't do is filter your stuff out after the fermentation is complete.
It's tempting- you get a clear product, but a certain...
je ne sais quois...
gets stripped out along with the cloudy residue.
Give it some time to clear, or let it clear in the bottle if you're itching to bottle.
Just be careful when you decant that you don't put any of the lees in your friend's drink.
Harmless, but gross looking.
 
So basically using the cider will make for a longer settle time. Ok cool.

While I would never filter the cider when it comes time to bottle, I may add a clearing agent. We'll see what I end up with, I suppose. I'm at least 6 months away from bottling. Plenty of time.

Thanks all for the feedback!
 
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