Starting 2 ciders this weekend!

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snortwheeze

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So got my 5 gallon buckets from work (food grade, no worries) and have been pretty set on making the Carmel apple cider this weekend. While I was sitting at home tonight, my next door neighbor came over with a 1 gallon glass jug she came across today. Now I am faced with a dilemma: what to brew in the 1 gallon? I might as well use it, right? What I'm looking for is ideas on what to make for my small batch. Not too sure if I like the razz berry ideas, might go strawberry or a " Christmassy cider". So any good ideas for 1 gallon batches? And what would BE a Christmassy flavored cider? Hmmmmmmm...... Thoughts?
 
Maybe cranberry and have it ready for Thanksgiving.

I'm planning on experimenting with pumpkin, thought that might be nice for the fall / winter.

For Christmas cider, I always think of cinnamon, cloves, whatever other spices are use for a warm cider.
 
Do something off the wall crazy. Start with apple juice, add some honey or concentrate, throw in your yeast of choice, let ferment, cold crash, add cinnamon sticks and fresh ground nutmeg to it and back sweeten with some more of the same concentrate. Let sit at room temp for a few days, place in fridge and let us know how it turned out.
 
snortwheeze said:
So got my 5 gallon buckets from work (food grade, no worries) and have been pretty set on making the Carmel apple cider this weekend. While I was sitting at home tonight, my next door neighbor came over with a 1 gallon glass jug she came across today. Now I am faced with a dilemma: what to brew in the 1 gallon? I might as well use it, right? What I'm looking for is ideas on what to make for my small batch. Not too sure if I like the razz berry ideas, might go strawberry or a " Christmassy cider". So any good ideas for 1 gallon batches? And what would BE a Christmassy flavored cider? Hmmmmmmm...... Thoughts?
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I made JOAM mead in my one gallon jug and may put a melamel in another soon.
 
I know this is supposed to be about cider, but what the verdict on some grape juice. For Passover supper we had very good, low alcohol grape juice. It was very good and the alcohol wasn't overpowering. Was thinking of trying to replicate this. Not looking to make wine or champagne, basically a grape cider I think...
 
Your not talking about that Hebrew grape jelly tasting junk are you. No offense but that **** is like drinking melted down grape jelly.:(
 
image-703888121.jpg

Jesus loves beer
 
HAREEBROWNBEEST said:
Your not talking about that Hebrew grape jelly tasting junk are you. No offense but that **** is like drinking melted down grape jelly.:(
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Well I thought it was good. I'm just saying, gonna have plenty of the Carmel cider, just want to do something different.
 
HAREEBROWNBEEST said:
Your not talking about that Hebrew grape jelly tasting junk are you. No offense but that **** is like drinking melted down grape jelly.:(
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I like it. Add a little seltzer on a hot summer night.
 
Well decided to go with a cran apple for my one gallon batch. Not wild about cranberries, but the SWMBO and her daughter are so I'll make them a small batch and see how they like it. Will post pictures tomorrow along with my methods. Fingers crossed....
 
I made one last year. 48 oz. of Craisin's and it turned out fabulous after 3 months in the bottle. By far my fav experiment.
 
MarkKF said:
I made one last year. 48 oz. of Craisin's and it turned out fabulous after 3 months in the bottle. By far my fav experiment.
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Was that 48oz for a ~5 gallon batch?
 
That's why I have this guy. Cranberry apple, one gallon batch. Both are bubbling away happily! Still smells like fruity bread, but I'm happy. No rhino farts (yeast nutrient) and both should end up with about 7% abv. I'll take my first reading in about a week.

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Ah yes I promised you guys my methods. Well basically I just followed upstatemike's directions, but here are the stats.

1: starting temp on 5 gallon apple batch was 76.4; on the cran apple it was 76 even

2. Rehydrated my yeast in 90% water, per instructions

3. Starting sg on apple and cran apple was 1.042 and after sugar added it was 1.060 (for my first time I was quite happy to hit the same sg on both batches!)

4. Added the rest of the juice, mixed well, placed my airlocks and waited. The one gallon batch was started about 5 hours after the big batch and has one good bubble about every second. The big batch bubbles a lot every 2-3 seconds.

The only thing I did not like about this was how far I had to drive for my yeast, but that's a non issue now, since my brother can get it and send it to me. I figure I'll be bottling in about three weeks so until then, I'll post pictures of my readings so you can see the progression.
 
snortwheeze said:
That's why I have this guy. Cranberry apple, one gallon batch. Both are bubbling away happily! Still smells like fruity bread, but I'm happy. No rhino farts (yeast nutrient) and both should end up with about 7% abv. I'll take my first reading in about a week.
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Nice! That looks like the same color of one I have going. Sweet Nectar!
 
Ok so air lock activity has slowed a great deal. Took reading on both batches:

Carmel Apple is at 1.010 which is about 6.3% abv

Cran apple is at 1.000 (maybe a little higher) but even if its a little bit higher that puts it in the 7 to 7.5% range.

These have been going since Saturday. The little one has some sediment on the bottom, obviously not sure about big blue.

I'm still getting a bubble about every three or so seconds on the small one and about the same on big blue.

Question is; are these done already? Should I rack to a secondary? If not, when should I rack? I have it marked on my calendar for two
Weeks from Saturday (September 8th)

Any help would be appreciated!
 
Big blue tasted good, still strong alcohol taste, but good. Cran apple was lighter fluid! Hope that mellows! Lol!
 
Lack of airlock activity doesn't necessarily mean it's done fermenting. Just means It's not cranking out as much co2. Hydrometer readings indicate when it's done fermenting. Keep in mind some recipes like apfelwein can benefit from sitting there for months.
 
snortwheeze said:
The hydrometer reading was 1.000. Right in the "done" range.
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Alcohol has a specific gravity of less then 1, so you occassionally get an FG of less then one. I'd give it a couple of days and recheck the gravity. If it hasn't moved, it's done.
 
Ok so here is the small one. Air lock has stopped completely. Little globs of yeast occasionally shoot up from the bottom and then sink again. Wondering if I should rack to a secondary now or just wait. These finished very quick, so I'm going to have to bottle the small one in pop bottles and cold crash. Also how long should I let this go in the secondary? Thanks in advance!

image-3783528575.jpg
 
So racked my small guy last night (it's starting to clear already) and now big blue has stopped bubbling (sigh) no bottles to bottle big blue so he'll have to wait. Small fry is going to be back sweetened this weekend and put I pop bottles. Not very classy, but oh we'll. It's be in the mid 80* here and SWIMBO refuses to turn on the A/C so that could be why they finished so early. My question is, with them finishing so early, am I looking at off flavors or should it just be fine?
 
The cranapple looks nice. I did 1/2 gallon cranberry using knudsen cranberry juice. It came out pretty good, somewhat dry, and it will pucker your mouth pretty badly but it has a good aftertaste and leaves you grinning after about 15 minutes.

On the low alcohol grape juice/wine, my dad 'accidentally' made some like that. He was trying to make grape juice in ball jars, then maybe 15 years later I find those jars stored away deep in the basement. I was going to throw them out, but I decided to at least open one to see what happened to it. Well low and behold it fermented. It wasn't high alcohol at all, but it was amazingly declicious. Somewhat like a 'spiked' grape juice.
 
The flavors should be more present if they haven't been going to long. What are you going to back sweeten with? And are your pop bottles able to accept a cap for bottling?
 
The spiked grape juice was exactly what I was looking at. Although my local store has blueberry pomegranate juice that I think I'm going to try next. The pop bottles are regular 20 oz bottles that I have saved the caps from. Just screw on deals. That is unless I can get my hands on some swing tops before the weekend. But I've got a better chance of growing a second d#%~ from my forehead.
 
You might want to stick your cider in the fridge for a few days. You usually get a lot of particles to fall out of suspension doing that. Then bottle.

Did you plan to carbonate the results?
 
Let it sit out a few days at around 75*F. Pop one open and check or use a plastic bottle to check the firmness.
 
Unfortunately they are all plastic bottles......thats why there are no pics..... Too embarrassed...... Once I pour my first one, I'll post a pic of that!
 

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