prince87x
Member
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2014
- Messages
- 21
- Reaction score
- 0
I've just started brewing recently and for my second batch I have decided to have a go at making cider. I read "the big cider making post" on Reddit and Brandon O's Graff post on HBT was recommended as the recipe to follow. I went out and got everything listed and brewed it up. I used Nottinham yeast and Cascade hop pellets that had around 7.2% alpha. I have a few questions though that I'd appreciate help/answers to.
1. The store only had 3 lb bags of DME. I got a 3 lb bag of each type that was called for. The recipe calls for 1 lb of each and like an idiot I added 16 oz measured by measuring cup but that's fluid oz right? I didn't have a scale (though I just bought one from Amazon so it will be here in 2 days) so I looked it up and people were saying when they measured it came out to be about 2 and 7/8 cups. I had only just finished brewing and pitched about 2-3 hrs earlier so having only added 2 cups of each I went and boiled 7/8 of a cup of each of the two DME then brought down to about 65F and added it to my primary. It seems everything will be already and today it is starting to ferment nicely. Anyway the question is that I took a reading of the OG before I pitched which was 1.052 and before I added the 7/8 cup of both DME types extra. I knew it was going to be impossible to get a new accurate reading so anyone have any ideas on how high my OG might be from 1.052 having added just under a cup of each type of DME?
2. The first store I went too had crappy AJ from concentrate with lots of Vitamin C so I went to another store and found some good organic AJ with no Vitamin C in it. I bought 4 gallons of it and it did have 2% magnesium per serving. Any thoughts of if that magnesium is going to affect taste or anything else? I read about how magnesium levels are found in water and sometimes need to be balanced? I didn't think it was going to harm the cider much but I thought I'd ask anyway to know.
3. The recipe on HBT doesn't mention anything about this but the stickied Reddit cider post mentions that he 9 times out of 10 recommends adding actual fruit matter to the cider. The AJ itself did have some perticulate matter in it being organic. It says to add a mash of the chosen fruit in a secondary to maintain and impart color and flavor. I could just take the easy route it seems and leave it in my primary and then go strait to bottle but it seems a lot of ciders are somewhat bittler/unsweet and lose their flavor from the fermentation process from what I've been reading. Thoughts on doing a secondary and adding fruit to it? Or should I just scrap it and stay in primary and go to bottle.
4. I've been looking at the priming calculator and for standard cider priming the CO2 volumes have a range of 1.0-3.5 and that seems like a pretty wide range. I like a decently carbonated beer so 1.0 seems a bit low. The middle is 2.25 so that may be a good volume to shoot for?
1. The store only had 3 lb bags of DME. I got a 3 lb bag of each type that was called for. The recipe calls for 1 lb of each and like an idiot I added 16 oz measured by measuring cup but that's fluid oz right? I didn't have a scale (though I just bought one from Amazon so it will be here in 2 days) so I looked it up and people were saying when they measured it came out to be about 2 and 7/8 cups. I had only just finished brewing and pitched about 2-3 hrs earlier so having only added 2 cups of each I went and boiled 7/8 of a cup of each of the two DME then brought down to about 65F and added it to my primary. It seems everything will be already and today it is starting to ferment nicely. Anyway the question is that I took a reading of the OG before I pitched which was 1.052 and before I added the 7/8 cup of both DME types extra. I knew it was going to be impossible to get a new accurate reading so anyone have any ideas on how high my OG might be from 1.052 having added just under a cup of each type of DME?
2. The first store I went too had crappy AJ from concentrate with lots of Vitamin C so I went to another store and found some good organic AJ with no Vitamin C in it. I bought 4 gallons of it and it did have 2% magnesium per serving. Any thoughts of if that magnesium is going to affect taste or anything else? I read about how magnesium levels are found in water and sometimes need to be balanced? I didn't think it was going to harm the cider much but I thought I'd ask anyway to know.
3. The recipe on HBT doesn't mention anything about this but the stickied Reddit cider post mentions that he 9 times out of 10 recommends adding actual fruit matter to the cider. The AJ itself did have some perticulate matter in it being organic. It says to add a mash of the chosen fruit in a secondary to maintain and impart color and flavor. I could just take the easy route it seems and leave it in my primary and then go strait to bottle but it seems a lot of ciders are somewhat bittler/unsweet and lose their flavor from the fermentation process from what I've been reading. Thoughts on doing a secondary and adding fruit to it? Or should I just scrap it and stay in primary and go to bottle.
4. I've been looking at the priming calculator and for standard cider priming the CO2 volumes have a range of 1.0-3.5 and that seems like a pretty wide range. I like a decently carbonated beer so 1.0 seems a bit low. The middle is 2.25 so that may be a good volume to shoot for?
