theDarkPint
Active Member
I've got 5 gallons of cider from the local orchard happily fermenting away. It's nothing but cider, yeast nutrient, and Wyeast 1098 (British Ale).
Using my refractometer, it is down to Brix: 8.4/Gravity: 1.034. I used some online calculators to adjust for alcohol and it says I'm down to a 1.016 grav. My original plan was to cold crash at ~1.014 as I want to keep the cider semi-sweet.
Here's where I'm starting to doubt myself/have confusion.
Right now it's sitting in the primary with a slimy/foamy top and about an inch and a half to two inches of sediment at the bottom (some apple bits, some yeast). It's full of floating matter. Should I:
A - Rack it to a secondary, let it ferment a little longer to 1.01-ish, cold crash it and then move it to a keg.
or
B - Don't worry about secondary, just cold crash it when it hits the gravity I want and then rack into a keg.
The other side of this is I'm new to kegging. I just put my white house honey porter in a keg and think I may have made a mistake by not cold crashing first. Lots of stuff still floating in the beer. Hoping the cold sinks it - although won't that make my dip tube pick up the crud? Basically, I'm trying to figure out how to hit my target gravity and rack it without a ton of stuff left floating.
Also, is there any problem with conditioning the cider in a keg? Say I rack it to the keg, pressurize and remove oxygen and just let it sit for a month or so.
Sorry for the noob questions. Been searching and reading and just seeing lots of conflicting info. Thanks in advance!
Using my refractometer, it is down to Brix: 8.4/Gravity: 1.034. I used some online calculators to adjust for alcohol and it says I'm down to a 1.016 grav. My original plan was to cold crash at ~1.014 as I want to keep the cider semi-sweet.
Here's where I'm starting to doubt myself/have confusion.
Right now it's sitting in the primary with a slimy/foamy top and about an inch and a half to two inches of sediment at the bottom (some apple bits, some yeast). It's full of floating matter. Should I:
A - Rack it to a secondary, let it ferment a little longer to 1.01-ish, cold crash it and then move it to a keg.
or
B - Don't worry about secondary, just cold crash it when it hits the gravity I want and then rack into a keg.
The other side of this is I'm new to kegging. I just put my white house honey porter in a keg and think I may have made a mistake by not cold crashing first. Lots of stuff still floating in the beer. Hoping the cold sinks it - although won't that make my dip tube pick up the crud? Basically, I'm trying to figure out how to hit my target gravity and rack it without a ton of stuff left floating.
Also, is there any problem with conditioning the cider in a keg? Say I rack it to the keg, pressurize and remove oxygen and just let it sit for a month or so.
Sorry for the noob questions. Been searching and reading and just seeing lots of conflicting info. Thanks in advance!