Hey,
Been awhile since I've posted on here. Finally coming out of brew break of at least 3 years. Mostly do all-grain but I like to experiment with all sorts. I'm renting a place with a crab apple tree (and a raspberry bush!!) in the back yard. Last fall I picked it clean and threw the apples in the freezer. I had intentions of turning them into some sort of wine or cider so when all this social distancing stuff came about it was the perfect time to do something about it.
I found this recipe and decided to give it a shot. But rather than using halved apples I threw mine in whole. I let everything sit for at least a day or two before adding the yeast, I was hoping the juices from the apple would leach out into the rest of the must before taking a gravity reading. SG was 1.060. I let it bubble away for about 2 weeks before getting impatient and racking it off the apples and into a carboy where I got a gravity around 1.030. It's now around 1.010 and still slowly bubbling away. So far it seems to be tasting ok with that classic crab apple tartness. My plan is to ferment it dry and back sweeten to taste.
My question is about the whole apples and the effect on the gravity. When I took that initial reading I'm pretty confident that a lot of the apple juice was still in the apples and not in the sample I took for a reading. But my suspicion is that over those first 2 weeks of fermentation that a lot of the apple juice started to seep out of the apples. Am I right in that suspicion? Should I expect a higher ABV than my initial reading suggests? And how can I account for this in future batches so I can be as accurate as possible?
Thanks for the tips.
Been awhile since I've posted on here. Finally coming out of brew break of at least 3 years. Mostly do all-grain but I like to experiment with all sorts. I'm renting a place with a crab apple tree (and a raspberry bush!!) in the back yard. Last fall I picked it clean and threw the apples in the freezer. I had intentions of turning them into some sort of wine or cider so when all this social distancing stuff came about it was the perfect time to do something about it.
I found this recipe and decided to give it a shot. But rather than using halved apples I threw mine in whole. I let everything sit for at least a day or two before adding the yeast, I was hoping the juices from the apple would leach out into the rest of the must before taking a gravity reading. SG was 1.060. I let it bubble away for about 2 weeks before getting impatient and racking it off the apples and into a carboy where I got a gravity around 1.030. It's now around 1.010 and still slowly bubbling away. So far it seems to be tasting ok with that classic crab apple tartness. My plan is to ferment it dry and back sweeten to taste.
My question is about the whole apples and the effect on the gravity. When I took that initial reading I'm pretty confident that a lot of the apple juice was still in the apples and not in the sample I took for a reading. But my suspicion is that over those first 2 weeks of fermentation that a lot of the apple juice started to seep out of the apples. Am I right in that suspicion? Should I expect a higher ABV than my initial reading suggests? And how can I account for this in future batches so I can be as accurate as possible?
Thanks for the tips.