Ninkasi70
Member
Last fall my Roommate decided that he was going to make hard cider. Food grade buckets were ordered, airlocks and bungs were obtained. Several trips to the world's least friendly HB store occurred. Also made a trip to the grocery store. We began with Tree Top apple juice and mulled it with cinnamon, cloves, ginger, cardamom and slices of Granny Smith for about 10 hours. While that was stinking up the kitchen we made starters with WPL 775 and Red Star (dry) Champagne yeasts.
On Nov 17 we pitched twin buckets:
Bucket 1:
5 Gal Mulled Apple Juice
Red Star Champagne yeast
OG 1.052
Bucket 2:
5 Gal Mulled Apple Juice
WPL 775 "English Cider" yeast
OG 1.052
Nov 29
The twins were kept under the kitchen table, which is has a floor length black table cloth on it. It was 57-62 degrees under there. After 12 days fermenting the twins dropped to a SG of 1.008. Bucket 1 (Champagne) was really active with lots of surface colonies and a lot of fine bubbles, it was lighter in color and cloudy as hell compared to its twin. Bucket 2 (WPL 775) was also active, but nothing that looked like kreuzen, and hazy but not really cloudy. It kept its dark color (from the spice mulling).
Dec 1
We sampled again and the ciders had dropped to SG 1.004. We taste tested. Bucket 1 (champagne) was more sour to me, and had really muddy flavors. Apple, some spice and some odd esters that I figured came with putting spices through fermentation. Bucket 2 (WPL 775) had nice clean, bright flavors, but also some of the weird esters/flavors. The Roommate called it apple & beer. He also thought that it wasn't as sweet tasting as Bucket 1, even though they had the same SG of 1.004. At this time the Roommate thought they weren't boozy enough, so we added 2C of light turbinado sugar to each bucket. Did we then take another SG reading? No, no we did not. The twins went back under the kitchen table were they sat undisturbed under airlocks.
Some time in early January
Not liking the cloudiness of Bucket 1, Roommate paper filtered the heck out of it, but I don't think he racked it off the lees. Definitely didn't take a FG reading, though I suspect all that sugar is gone, baby gone. After filtering he racked the cider to the 1 gal plastic jugs the apple juice was sold in, one of which he put in the freezer hoping to trap the suspended particulate in the ice.
Jan 30
Freezer bottle is frozen solid. I inverted it over a bowl and collected about 750 ml of fluid. Sonofabugger, it is still pretty darn cloudy. We taste test. It tastes better than it did on Dec 1. But I feel like the flavors are still muddy and it still has a lot of the weird esters and flavors that it's had all along. I also paper filter the heck out of it, and then decanted to a clean bottle and put it in the fridge. We put the rest of the jugs in the freezer.
Feb 1
Roommate partially defrosted a jug and pulls about 750 ml. He puts this in a couple of little tupperware type containers and puts them in the fridge. One of them developed weird clouds which I asked about in my thread "So what is that in my cider?" https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/so-what-my-cider-224887/
It's still in the fridge. Clouds haven't changed in size. Still creepy looking. Still smells fine. It is really clear though, finally.
Feb 7
Roommate defrosted the rest of the frozen bottles and took what he wanted. I wasn't home, so I all I know is that there are 3 more glass bottles in the fridge. Some of them have cloudiness at the bottom(similar to the giant clouds in the one container), but are otherwise perfectly clear. The bottle I filtered on Jan 30 never cleared up.
Bucket 1 final outcome:
3 750ml bottles of perfectly clear fluid the color of dark apple juice. I don't taste much in the way of apple fruit flavors. The spice notes are still there, as is a faint caramel taste. It sort of reminds me of grappa, but without the burning sensation.
Feb 13
Went to the hardware supply and bought 5' of skinny vinyl tubing. Sanitized the remaining apple juice jugs and the tubing and finally racked Bucket 2 to the plastic jugs. FG is .996. While this was the better cider back in December, it tastes pretty different now. No sugar left, no real apple flavors left, but the weird spice notes that have been there all along are still there along with a slight "brown apple" oxidized taste. For now it'll sit in the fridge to see if I can get the yeast to drop. Then we'll rack back to the fermentation bucket. After that I'm not sure what to do with it. Bottle? Roommate wants to freeze it so that he can compare it to its twin, apples to apples as it were.
Questions
Could there still be any yeast activity in the brandy-like stuff from bucket one?
(These bottles have never been brought up to room temperature, and I think most of the yeast remained trapped in the ice when we froze it. It's currently in port bottles with corks in the fridge.)
Are these batches just young, and will they improve with age? If so what should be done with the brandy-like cider in the glass bottles and the unfinished cider in the plastic jugs? Our best storage area is the "fermenting room" under the kitchen worktable. Temps there will remain around 62 probably until April where they'll bump to 66 and stay like that most of the year, until late fall when they'll drop to 57 until we turn on the heat.
Should we have topped up the buckets to lid level with plain apple juice on Dec 1? Otherwise, how do you get a layer of CO2 into your container headspace - do I buy a soda siphon and those little cartridges?
On Nov 17 we pitched twin buckets:
Bucket 1:
5 Gal Mulled Apple Juice
Red Star Champagne yeast
OG 1.052
Bucket 2:
5 Gal Mulled Apple Juice
WPL 775 "English Cider" yeast
OG 1.052
Nov 29
The twins were kept under the kitchen table, which is has a floor length black table cloth on it. It was 57-62 degrees under there. After 12 days fermenting the twins dropped to a SG of 1.008. Bucket 1 (Champagne) was really active with lots of surface colonies and a lot of fine bubbles, it was lighter in color and cloudy as hell compared to its twin. Bucket 2 (WPL 775) was also active, but nothing that looked like kreuzen, and hazy but not really cloudy. It kept its dark color (from the spice mulling).
Dec 1
We sampled again and the ciders had dropped to SG 1.004. We taste tested. Bucket 1 (champagne) was more sour to me, and had really muddy flavors. Apple, some spice and some odd esters that I figured came with putting spices through fermentation. Bucket 2 (WPL 775) had nice clean, bright flavors, but also some of the weird esters/flavors. The Roommate called it apple & beer. He also thought that it wasn't as sweet tasting as Bucket 1, even though they had the same SG of 1.004. At this time the Roommate thought they weren't boozy enough, so we added 2C of light turbinado sugar to each bucket. Did we then take another SG reading? No, no we did not. The twins went back under the kitchen table were they sat undisturbed under airlocks.
Some time in early January
Not liking the cloudiness of Bucket 1, Roommate paper filtered the heck out of it, but I don't think he racked it off the lees. Definitely didn't take a FG reading, though I suspect all that sugar is gone, baby gone. After filtering he racked the cider to the 1 gal plastic jugs the apple juice was sold in, one of which he put in the freezer hoping to trap the suspended particulate in the ice.
Jan 30
Freezer bottle is frozen solid. I inverted it over a bowl and collected about 750 ml of fluid. Sonofabugger, it is still pretty darn cloudy. We taste test. It tastes better than it did on Dec 1. But I feel like the flavors are still muddy and it still has a lot of the weird esters and flavors that it's had all along. I also paper filter the heck out of it, and then decanted to a clean bottle and put it in the fridge. We put the rest of the jugs in the freezer.
Feb 1
Roommate partially defrosted a jug and pulls about 750 ml. He puts this in a couple of little tupperware type containers and puts them in the fridge. One of them developed weird clouds which I asked about in my thread "So what is that in my cider?" https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/so-what-my-cider-224887/
It's still in the fridge. Clouds haven't changed in size. Still creepy looking. Still smells fine. It is really clear though, finally.
Feb 7
Roommate defrosted the rest of the frozen bottles and took what he wanted. I wasn't home, so I all I know is that there are 3 more glass bottles in the fridge. Some of them have cloudiness at the bottom(similar to the giant clouds in the one container), but are otherwise perfectly clear. The bottle I filtered on Jan 30 never cleared up.
Bucket 1 final outcome:
3 750ml bottles of perfectly clear fluid the color of dark apple juice. I don't taste much in the way of apple fruit flavors. The spice notes are still there, as is a faint caramel taste. It sort of reminds me of grappa, but without the burning sensation.
Feb 13
Went to the hardware supply and bought 5' of skinny vinyl tubing. Sanitized the remaining apple juice jugs and the tubing and finally racked Bucket 2 to the plastic jugs. FG is .996. While this was the better cider back in December, it tastes pretty different now. No sugar left, no real apple flavors left, but the weird spice notes that have been there all along are still there along with a slight "brown apple" oxidized taste. For now it'll sit in the fridge to see if I can get the yeast to drop. Then we'll rack back to the fermentation bucket. After that I'm not sure what to do with it. Bottle? Roommate wants to freeze it so that he can compare it to its twin, apples to apples as it were.
Questions
Could there still be any yeast activity in the brandy-like stuff from bucket one?
(These bottles have never been brought up to room temperature, and I think most of the yeast remained trapped in the ice when we froze it. It's currently in port bottles with corks in the fridge.)
Are these batches just young, and will they improve with age? If so what should be done with the brandy-like cider in the glass bottles and the unfinished cider in the plastic jugs? Our best storage area is the "fermenting room" under the kitchen worktable. Temps there will remain around 62 probably until April where they'll bump to 66 and stay like that most of the year, until late fall when they'll drop to 57 until we turn on the heat.
Should we have topped up the buckets to lid level with plain apple juice on Dec 1? Otherwise, how do you get a layer of CO2 into your container headspace - do I buy a soda siphon and those little cartridges?
