Making a sour cider

[csimmons21]

After a recent trip to the grocery, and seeing they fresh rhubarb, I decided to finally experiment with the package of roselaire yeast I had sitting in my fridge. I combined 2 lbs of strawberries and 10 stalks of rhubarb with 3 cups of cider and simmered to kill of anything as well as soften everything up. Blended up the mixture and siphoned the juice into a 2 gallon carboy and topped with apple juice and pitched my roselaire. Inspiration was one of my favorite "local" beers, new glarus strawberry rhubard.

The carboy is currently sitting in a 72 degree room give or take a few. I'm worried that the rhubard combined with the yeast blend will get too sour...is there A way to stop the souring process if this happens? I saw the mad fermentologist has tried something like this before which got me excited, love sour beers!

 

[Berritt]

I have no answers, but I'm excited to hear about your result with this.

 

[csimmons21]

It's been 48 hrs and no signs of activity - pitched half tablespoon of notty to get things moving.

 

[Brann_mac_Finnchad]

You should be fine on part of the rhubarb. 3 pounds per gallon gives a light tartness (with a sweet wine).

'Course, the stuff I used may have been low on oxetic acid...

 

[htc]

It's a bit late in the process for me to have a solution, but this reminded me of this blog post.

You have to scroll down for the english half of the procedure, but basically you can freeze the juice and pour off excess acid as if you were freeze concentrating alcohol. Maybe next time?

If you're into wines, it's a pretty good blog. Sorry for the lack of useful insight

 

[csimmons21]

Great info! Thanks guys. Here it is 12 hrs after notty pitch. Among other experiments 😬

I think it will be a awhile before I need to worry about to much sourness... I'm really going for the funk side of roselaire as opposed to the lacto sourness...I'm hoping the rhubarb and acid blend I pitched take care of that. Waiting over 8 months is going to be really hard haha (that's what the coffee "hopped" mead is for)

 

[csimmons21]

Day 3 - fern has slowed due to low sugar content likely...going to top off with more AJ

 

[RPCidery]

Did you treat your fresh fruit with pectinase?

 

[csimmons21]

Did you treat your fresh fruit with pectinase?

No I didn't, just added Pectic enzyme (is that the same?)


Long time reader - all cider

 

[RPCidery]

Same thing. Sounds pretty tasty.

 

[EpicCider]

Looks great, I'm really curious to see how this pans out.

 

[csimmons21]

Starting to clear a little...week three. has a great sour flavor with the strawberry. Tastes exactly how I wanted. I was surprised there wasn't any sour beer activity with this such as a pellicle or slow ferment; it's looked like this the whole time...


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[csimmons21]

This was a great success. Mouth puckering and light!


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[csimmons21]

Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew

 

[punkrawkgeek]

That looks just lovely. I really like that. I will have to try to do some of that. I think the rhubarb is coming out nicely right now. Reminds me of my nana, as she used to make me strawberry rhubarb pie for my birthday every year at this time. I cannot wait to get my hands on some of this!