Recent content by HappyWino

I haven't tried a different yeast strain, I stuck with this one as the taste is great and I haven't read anything of anybody else having an issue with the smell of the finished cider. I could try some Notty I guess, maybe the combination of 04 and the juice I get causes it... Perplexed... HW

I've made four or five 5G batches with a couple of different juices and I have never had a problem stopping fermentation dead with cold crashing, always using SafeAle-04. One batch using a different yeast (WPL-500 I think) won't stop no matter what I do, crashing, sorbate+sulfite...

A buddy of mine made cider following the exact same process as me, except the cold crashing ended up in a carboy in the fridge for several months before kegging...still the same haziness...still the same smell (edited as he replied to my text :))

Funny you should ask, I see cars all the time with a license plate frame that reads "Where in the hell...is Rescue, CA?" :) Northern California, in the Sierra Nevada foothills, about 15 miles from Folsom, CA, which in turn is about 25 miles from the state capital, Sacramento. Cheers HW

Well, a keg only lasts a week or two around here but it's the same from start to finish. It's worth mentioning that "yeasty" is really just the only way I can think of describing it all, it doesn't smell at all like it does during fermentation. What I am hoping for is a clean apple smell...

Now that I have your attention... :) I have made 4-5 batches of cider following CvilleKevin's basic process; Buy the best juice you can get (lucky enough to have several local cider mills), add sugar to reach your desired OG, ferment with SafeAle-04, crash, keg, carb, drink. Flavor is...

Assuming you are are able to keg, and that you like your cider medium as opposed to dry, here is the recipe and brewlog from a batch I just kegged; Barsotti Cider - 3/8/2012 5.5G Barsotti Apple Juice - SG: 1.054 2.6lbs Organic Turbinado Sugar (Trader Joe's) .25g Pectic Enzyme 5g...

Still struggling to get my head around this, thanks for being patient :) If I pull out a cup of liquid halfway through the process, surely the remaining liquid is still 6% because I didn't remove pure alcohol, I removed equal parts alcohol and whatever else is in there. The absolute amount...

I added both :) I am not really concerned with figuring out the ABV of this actual brew, really I am just interested in this method/capability in general. Hmm, that doesn't seem quite right, but I may be way off...here is how I (mis?) understand it; The starting gravity represents the...

Sorry about that, for some reason I don't understand I wasn't getting notifications from the thread, I thought it was sitting silent, boy was I wrong :) Please allow me to clarify; For standard, run of the mill ferments I use OG and FG to calculate potential alcohol, just as several people...

This is a re-post of a question I asked in the Brew Science forum before I realized that it was a sub-forum of "Beer". Hopefully posting here will get some more wine\cider related feedback as that is what I am making! :) I have long wished (as have many others I am sure) that there were an...

@ajdelange - so are you saying that the method VinoCalc (and others) offer just plain doesn't work at all? Cheers HW

I would just like to chip in that using a wine yeast seems to strip out most of the apple flavor and the resulting brew needs significant aging to come back around. Using an ale yeast like Safale 04 will leave a lot more apple flavor, even when fermented dry. At the end of the day I guess it...

I have long wished (as have many others I am sure) that there were an easy way to calculate actual ABV of a finished product but always believed it required more complex lab equipment than I am willing to get involved in. Recently a friend came across a couple of different sites offering a...

Crispin "The Saint"