Basilisk
Active Member
Hi guys!
So about a month and a half ago, me and my friend started brewing some cider. I wrote down as much as I could think of at the time so (ideally) we'd be able to see what we and change it next time.
So, we started with 2 gallon jugs of cider (bought at Whole Foods). We wanted to try a bunch of different little variants, so we had these handy 1 Liter glass sparking water bottles we found. We let some bleach water sit in them (and then rinsed them out VERY well before putting cider in them).
We started by simmering 1.5 gallons of the cider in a huge pot, to "kill the wild yeasts", according to the guide we were following (does this make sense?). We then did some math regarding the brown sugar we were going to add:
The guide suggested adding 2 lbs of brown sugar for 5 gallons of cider, which works out to .6 lbs for 1.5 gallons. So we added this to the pot and dissolved it.
We then let it cool to about room temp, and added the yeast. The yeast math was even sketchier:
One guide suggested 10g for 5 gallons, but another suggested a quarter of a teaspoon for each gallon... It should also be noted that here is the start of our extreme ghettoness, as we were using baking yeast as opposed to wine yeast... So, I believe we went with the 10g/5gal one and added 4g. We stirred this well and then started adding to the liter bottles. Here is the breakdown of the variants we did:
-1L, we added a cup of raspberries to the bottle (which must add a ton more fermentable sugar, right?)
-1L, we added 2g of cinnamon
-1L, we did the math out and realized the amount of sugar that must have been added to the other bottles was about 50g, so we added another 50g to this bottle (to see if it would taste noticeably more alcoholic)
-1L, we didn't actually boil this one because a guide I read said that keeping the "wild yeasts" in would affect the taste, for better or worse. We wanted to see for ourselves...
-The rest, we just left plain, as a control group.
We then did the ghetto airlock method, and for each one, put a balloon over the top of the bottle, with lots of holes poked in it, and secured with a rubber band. We think we poked enough that with positive pressure, CO2 would be able to escape, but a minimum of O2 would be able to get in...just how ineffective is this method?
We then let it sit for about 3 weeks. The balloons were all very puffed up tight (indicating, I think, that CO2 was produced and because of the positive pressure, O2 mostly kept out). We noticed that there was a thick layer of sediment at the bottom of each bottle, so we siphoned them to new bottles and reapplied the balloons. We tried to minimize air exposure, but I'm sure a ton contacted the cider. Was this a really bad thing to do? We then left them sitting for another week.
Then, we bottled them. We wanted to have carbonation, so we did out more sketchy math based on some source and decided to add about 4g of brown sugar per bottle before capping them. We're not sure how much those carbonation sugar capsules add...
Anyway, our results! First of all, they were all decent at least. Second of all, for some reason, only the raspberry and another one with a mix of stuff actually got carbonated. The rest were relatively flat.
-The plain was good. Seemed to be the most popular with our friends.
-The cinnamon was...strange. Me and another guy thought it left the taste of burning car tires in our mouth...
-The unsimmered (wild yeast) one was fairly unpleasant to me, but one guy really liked it.
-None of us noticed a difference in the taste of the double sugar one indicating more alcohol.
-The raspberry one was delicious, really tasted like raspberries.
So any advice??!? We're going to try this again because it was so fun and we could really use some suggestions.
Thanks!!
So about a month and a half ago, me and my friend started brewing some cider. I wrote down as much as I could think of at the time so (ideally) we'd be able to see what we and change it next time.
So, we started with 2 gallon jugs of cider (bought at Whole Foods). We wanted to try a bunch of different little variants, so we had these handy 1 Liter glass sparking water bottles we found. We let some bleach water sit in them (and then rinsed them out VERY well before putting cider in them).
We started by simmering 1.5 gallons of the cider in a huge pot, to "kill the wild yeasts", according to the guide we were following (does this make sense?). We then did some math regarding the brown sugar we were going to add:
The guide suggested adding 2 lbs of brown sugar for 5 gallons of cider, which works out to .6 lbs for 1.5 gallons. So we added this to the pot and dissolved it.
We then let it cool to about room temp, and added the yeast. The yeast math was even sketchier:
One guide suggested 10g for 5 gallons, but another suggested a quarter of a teaspoon for each gallon... It should also be noted that here is the start of our extreme ghettoness, as we were using baking yeast as opposed to wine yeast... So, I believe we went with the 10g/5gal one and added 4g. We stirred this well and then started adding to the liter bottles. Here is the breakdown of the variants we did:
-1L, we added a cup of raspberries to the bottle (which must add a ton more fermentable sugar, right?)
-1L, we added 2g of cinnamon
-1L, we did the math out and realized the amount of sugar that must have been added to the other bottles was about 50g, so we added another 50g to this bottle (to see if it would taste noticeably more alcoholic)
-1L, we didn't actually boil this one because a guide I read said that keeping the "wild yeasts" in would affect the taste, for better or worse. We wanted to see for ourselves...
-The rest, we just left plain, as a control group.
We then did the ghetto airlock method, and for each one, put a balloon over the top of the bottle, with lots of holes poked in it, and secured with a rubber band. We think we poked enough that with positive pressure, CO2 would be able to escape, but a minimum of O2 would be able to get in...just how ineffective is this method?
We then let it sit for about 3 weeks. The balloons were all very puffed up tight (indicating, I think, that CO2 was produced and because of the positive pressure, O2 mostly kept out). We noticed that there was a thick layer of sediment at the bottom of each bottle, so we siphoned them to new bottles and reapplied the balloons. We tried to minimize air exposure, but I'm sure a ton contacted the cider. Was this a really bad thing to do? We then left them sitting for another week.
Then, we bottled them. We wanted to have carbonation, so we did out more sketchy math based on some source and decided to add about 4g of brown sugar per bottle before capping them. We're not sure how much those carbonation sugar capsules add...
Anyway, our results! First of all, they were all decent at least. Second of all, for some reason, only the raspberry and another one with a mix of stuff actually got carbonated. The rest were relatively flat.
-The plain was good. Seemed to be the most popular with our friends.
-The cinnamon was...strange. Me and another guy thought it left the taste of burning car tires in our mouth...
-The unsimmered (wild yeast) one was fairly unpleasant to me, but one guy really liked it.
-None of us noticed a difference in the taste of the double sugar one indicating more alcohol.
-The raspberry one was delicious, really tasted like raspberries.
So any advice??!? We're going to try this again because it was so fun and we could really use some suggestions.
Thanks!!
