Question about Apfelwein recipe

[suckr]

Hello

I hate for my first post to be such a noobish question but..

While I have a couple simple extract beers going (still learning), I was interested in getting a batch of Apfelwein going. I went to my friendly LHBS to get some supplies and he did not have the Montrachet yeast. After explaining to him that I was making an apple wine (and I wanted to try for champane type carb.) he suggested a D-47 (Lalvin brand) yeast.

Since I'm still pretty new to this, is this an acceptable yeast to use?
Do I need to do anything special now to try to acheive champane or 'sparkling' carbonation or is that determined later at bottling?

He also suggested a pectic enzyme to add at the start. It's not in the recipe so I hadn't panned on using it but for $2 I picked it up anyways (I felt it was the least I could do since he kept giving me glasses and shots of his beer, wine, cider, and liqour, oh and a piece of cheese)

Any reason to add or not add this stuff? (Directions say .5tsp/gal)

Thanks in advance for any help. My lurking around here for a while has really prevented me from clogging up your nice site with all kinds of questions. Hopefully I add something a little more beneficial on down the line. :cross:

 

[bob1852]

I've used D47 - it comes out with a little different flavor than with Montrachet, but it's still good.

You don't need to use pectin enzyme, unless you really heat up your juice, or use fresh fruit (neither of which you do with Apfelwein).

Finally, when you bottle, you'll add some additional corn sugar (~3/4 cup for a 5-gallon batch) to get it all nice and sparkly!

Welcome to HBT

 

[suckr]

Thanks for the quick reply

One think I forgot to mention.. The only free container I have right now is a 7 gal bucket. Any problems using that? I was going to pick up a 5 gal BB but apparently someone went to his store yesterday and cleaned him out.

 

[bob1852]

Thanks for the quick reply

One think I forgot to mention.. The only free container I have right now is a 7 gal bucket. Any problems using that? I was going to pick up a 5 gal BB but apparently someone went to his store yesterday and cleaned him out.

The bucket will work - but the problem with using buckets for wine is that you can't see when they become clear.

And if you keep opening it up to look, you're gonna be adding in some air into that big head space.

If I were you, I'd make a 6 gallon batch in the 7 gallon bucket to avoid that extra head space :rockin:

 

[ISLAGI]

See if you can get him to take the pectin back and give you some yeast nutrient or DAP.

Avoid da rhino farts!

 

[suckr]

See if you can get him to take the pectin back and give you some yeast nutrient or DAP.

Avoid da rhino farts!

Yeah.. I'm looking forward to the smell.. 'specially since this will be set up in my kitchen. We'll see what the wife thinks of it here shortly.

After thinking about it for a couple hours, I think I'll hold off a couple days until I either order another BB or get a 6 gal locally. I'm somewhat impatient to get this started so I may just break down and get the larger one locally. I'm off to look now, but what is a DAP? I'm assuming I add that or the yeast nutrient from the start, correct?

Thanks again everyone for the help.

 

[suckr]

I figured out the DAP thing.. Amazing what you can find if you spend 30 seconds looking for it.

I'll try to pick some up tomarrow. I prolly just gonna get another bottle while I'm there as well - I'm too impatient to wait the few days for shipping. This is gonna be a rough hobby for me (with the impatience thing), I'm gonna have to keep 20 batches in a pipeling just to keep me entertained.

 

[bob1852]

This is gonna be a rough hobby for me (with the impatience thing), I'm gonna have to keep 20 batches in a pipeling just to keep me entertained.

my advice is to make your first batch and recognize that you're gonna drink it all too soon. In the meantime - make more, and more, and more.

It worked for me. I made some mead - drank it all too green while I was making more and more. Now I have almost perfectly aged raspberry, grape, orange, and show mead