Applejack Cider

[Willyd57]

A full month ago I started a 5gal batch of Applejack. It has now quit "bubbling" so, it was a nice slow fermentation. But, It seems to have a very low ethanol content. The OG was 1.090, and today I took the FG and it was 1.078. Both readings were taken with a refractometer. If I did the math right, the ABV is only 1.575. Should I add another batch of yeast and do a second fermentation? The room were I have the carboy is approx. 68 - 70 F.

Thanks
Bill

 

[lumpher]

Need a little clarification. Applejack and cider are 2 different things. You make hard cider, then freeze-distill it into applejack. I'm guessing you mean just hard cider. What yeast did you use? You can swirl the fermenter around a little to try to get a little movement going. If it's been bubbling for a month, though, I wouldn't trust the reading.

 

[Willyd57]

This is an applejack. I started with 5gal of cider, and pitched 10g of fermentis SafeCider A-2. It's a bit heavy, but I did manage to swirl it around pretty good yesterday. That seemed to make no difference. The refractometer is new, but I guess that don't mean it's accurate. I will look into calibrating it.

 

[Willyd57]

Need a little clarification. Applejack and cider are 2 different things. You make hard cider, then freeze-distill it into applejack. I'm guessing you mean just hard cider. What yeast did you use? You can swirl the fermenter around a little to try to get a little movement going. If it's been bubbling for a month, though, I wouldn't trust the reading.

This is an applejack. I started with 5gal of cider, and pitched 10g of fermentis SafeCider A-2. It's a bit heavy, but I did manage to swirl it around pretty good yesterday. That seemed to make no difference. The refractometer is new, but I guess that don't mean it's accurate. I will look into calibrating it.

 

[TheBluePhantom]

Are you using the refractometer reading directly, or with a conversion formula? Once alcohol is involved the refractometer is not accurate alone.

 

[Willyd57]

Are you using the refractometer reading directly, or with a conversion formula? Once alcohol is involved the refractometer is not accurate alone.

Yea, I have been using it alone! That may very well be the issue I guess. I have a hydrometer in the house, but I can't find the damn thing. Thanks for the tip!

 

[Willyd57]

Yea, I have been using it alone! That may very well be the issue I guess. I have a hydrometer in the house, but I can't find the damn thing. Thanks for the tip!

I found my hydrometer and after taking the FG using it (and compensating for temp) I get a FG of 1.069. That number subtracted from the OG (which was taken with my refractometer). gives me .021 multiply that by 131.25 and you get to an ABV of 2.756. That is better than I had estimated before, but still way low. I confirmed this by drawing off about 1 liter of cider and putting it in the freezer at approx. 0 F and the entire bottle froze leaving no liquid to drain off.

So, I would guess I have to pitch more yeast. But, do I also have to add more sugar?? I originally put 5 pounds of sugar in 5gal of cider.

Any help would be great!

Bill

 

[toadie]

You shouldn't need to add more sugar. If the pH is too low you could potentially bump it up with some calcium carbonate. I would also add some yeast nutrient and possibly yeast energizer. The main thing you should do is make a yeast starter and add some must to it incrementally before you pitch it back into the 5 gallons. Good luck!

 

[lumpher]

toadie
Well-Known Member
You shouldn't need to add more sugar. If the pH is too low you could potentially bump it up with some calcium carbonate. I would also add some yeast nutrient and possibly yeast energizer. The main thing you should do is make a yeast starter and add some must to it incrementally before you pitch it back into the 5 gallons. Good luck!



This... Adding the must to it slowly will allow the yeast to adapt to the lower ph without the huge shock of dumping it right into acid.

 

[James Benoit]

First of all, what kind of "cider" did you start with? Ideally it would be raw apple juice/must, fresh from the orchard, non-pasteurized and definitely without preservatives (like potassium sorbate, which largely inhibits fermentation). You can get by with pasteurized juice/must, but it is more difficult to clarify later (pectin haze).

Secondly, what type of yeast did you use? Were you relying on the wild yeast present in the apple juice/must (which is a crap shoot in terms of flavor profile), or did you kill that with Campden tablets and let it sit for 1-2 days before adding the cider- or wine-specific yeast? Champagne yeast works well because it is very tolerant, but it doesn't impart much taste. Red Star Côte des Blancs or Lalvin 71B-1122 Narbonne or Wyeast 4766 Cider Yeast or AWRI 350 Yeast all have better flavor profiles.

Third, did you rehydrate the yeast according to the package instructions, especially temperature? Did you add a rehydration nutrient? How warm was the room where you were fermenting? Room temperature is usually just fine, but any colder and it inhibits fermentation. Did you add the yeast to 2-3 cups of juice/must as a wine starter in a warm location to ensure the yeast had taken hold? If not, any residual wild yeast may have taken over, and it is far less predictable, and far slower. Did you add a yeast nutrient when you added the yeast starter to the rest of the juice/must.

The amount of bubbling is only a rough approximation of whether fermentation is still continuing. A change in specific gravity is the only real test, which is complicated by trying to use a refractometer to measure specific gravity instead of a hydrometer. Ideally you would use the same hydrometer at the beginning and end of fermentation to measure the difference.

On average, it took my ciders about a month to ferment to complete dryness (which often was less than 1.000 SG; sometimes as low as 0.980). Some ferments took 2 months to complete. The cider progresses as fast as it does. I used to belong to an international cider forum, and they were always preaching that having a slow fermentation yielded a better taste profile.

I usually only chapitalized about 1 pound of sugar to 1 gallon of juice/must to reach a SG about 1.080, which would yield about 11-12% alcohol. If you add more sugar now, it would be much more difficult to estimate your alcohol percentage.

Of course, it doesn't turn into Apple Jack until you freeze it and extract the concentrated alcohol (which isn't lawful in all jurisdictions, BTW).

 

[Willyd57]

First of all, what kind of "cider" did you start with? Ideally it would be raw apple juice/must, fresh from the orchard, non-pasteurized and definitely without preservatives (like potassium sorbate, which largely inhibits fermentation). You can get by with pasteurized juice/must, but it is more difficult to clarify later (pectin haze).

Secondly, what type of yeast did you use? Were you relying on the wild yeast present in the apple juice/must (which is a crap shoot in terms of flavor profile), or did you kill that with Campden tablets and let it sit for 1-2 days before adding the cider- or wine-specific yeast? Champagne yeast works well because it is very tolerant, but it doesn't impart much taste. Red Star Côte des Blancs or Lalvin 71B-1122 Narbonne or Wyeast 4766 Cider Yeast or AWRI 350 Yeast all have better flavor profiles.

Third, did you rehydrate the yeast according to the package instructions, especially temperature? Did you add a rehydration nutrient? How warm was the room where you were fermenting? Room temperature is usually just fine, but any colder and it inhibits fermentation. Did you add the yeast to 2-3 cups of juice/must as a wine starter in a warm location to ensure the yeast had taken hold? If not, any residual wild yeast may have taken over, and it is far less predictable, and far slower. Did you add a yeast nutrient when you added the yeast starter to the rest of the juice/must.

The amount of bubbling is only a rough approximation of whether fermentation is still continuing. A change in specific gravity is the only real test, which is complicated by trying to use a refractometer to measure specific gravity instead of a hydrometer. Ideally you would use the same hydrometer at the beginning and end of fermentation to measure the difference.

On average, it took my ciders about a month to ferment to complete dryness (which often was less than 1.000 SG; sometimes as low as 0.980). Some ferments took 2 months to complete. The cider progresses as fast as it does. I used to belong to an international cider forum, and they were always preaching that having a slow fermentation yielded a better taste profile.

I usually only chapitalized about 1 pound of sugar to 1 gallon of juice/must to reach a SG about 1.080, which would yield about 11-12% alcohol. If you add more sugar now, it would be much more difficult to estimate your alcohol percentage.

Of course, it doesn't turn into Apple Jack until you freeze it and extract the concentrated alcohol (which isn't lawful in all jurisdictions, BTW).

First off, thank you for your detailed response James! It is greatly appreciated my friend. After reading your reply, and doing some independent research I set about the task of "getting my **** together" on this project. The unfortunate bit is that I live in a very small town in Iowa so there is no brew supply store closer than 80 to 100 miles from me so I had to wait for things to arrive in the mail.

To answer your questions, the cider I used came from a local Walmart. It was pasteurized, but I don't believe it had preservatives in it because it was in the refrigeration section, and the label said to keep it that way. Anyway, it was the only thing available to me other than apple juice. I put 5gl of the cider in a carboy and added 5lbs of sugar. Then I took my OG with a refractometer. The reading was 1.090, but I corrected that using a BeerSmith3 tool and got a final OG of 1.088. The temperature of the room where it is fermenting is around 68-70 F.

As for yeast, I used 10g of Fermentis SafCider AS-2. I rehydrated it as per directions on the product (don't recall the temperature) and stirred in the must. I did not use anything to kill off wild yeast, but I did make a yeast starter by mixing in some must and letting it stand for 24 hours in a worm place.

I found my fancy pants ph meter to be wildly out of calibration. So, I ordered the chemicals needed to calibrate it, and a TA test kit to get an idea of wow much total acid is in the must. The PH turned out to be 3.8, with an overall TA of around .805 (I forgot to write that down, but it's a good guess). I believe to be microbilly safe, cider should be < 3.0. So, I added 80g of Malic acid to lower the ph to 2.8. That also upped the TA levels to 1.2% of total volume.

The addition of malic acid has given the must a bit of a "tart" finish, but the overall flavor is good.

Now things seem to be going along well again, as it is fermenting away just fine.

I have a question! Would it be OK to add a stick of fresh cinnamon and maybe a couple of cloves?

Thanks again for your great help!

 

[James Benoit]

I've found that it's easier to control the taste if I take small, incremental steps.

I added 5 cinnamon sticks for ~ 2 weeks once to a 5-gallon carboy of finished cider. The resulting taste was far too "woody." I suggest waiting until your cider has finished fermenting (when the SG will be at or below 1.000) before adding a single cinnamon stick for about a week, and then getting a few others to taste it with you.

Then try adding a few cloves for a few days. Remember that the flavor profiles will be intensified if you concentrate the alcohol by freezing the cider. You could also just wait until after you've made AppleJack, and then think about adjusting the flavor. Just don't add any sugars again, or it will likely start fermenting again, possibly even at a higher alcohol percentage (depending on the yeast's sensitivity).

 

[Raptor99]

If your OG is 1.088 the potential ABV is 12.3%. For most of my ciders, I don't add any sugar and the ABV comes out around 5-6%. According to federal law in the U.S. anything over 8.5% ABV is wine rather than hard cider. That is mainly for tax purposes, so it doesn't really matter to us. Make whatever you want. Apple wine is good too!

I can't find data on the alcohol tolerance of AS-2, but many cider yeasts will not go beyond 10% ABV. So it might not ferment completely dry.

For hard cider or apple wine, pH around 3.4 or 3.5 is a good target. Below pH 3.2 is very tart, and would require quite a bit of sweetening to be drinkable (at least for me).