Recent content by Kashue

I've done this using about half concentrate and half juice in a 1 gallon batch. Then I went straight ahead and freeze-distilled it into applejack. It was AMAZING, a potent dessert liquor that tasted like pie a bit. My mother in law got a bottle, but, believing it to be ordinary cider, used it...

I do this! 2-3 cans should give you a mildly sweet cider. More and you will wind up with a strong sour-apple candy taste. The REAL TRICK, IMO, is distributing the back-sweetening evenly; even adding it slowly as I rack my cider into the bottling bucket still produces rather uneven results...

I know, right? Winter has been holding my brew closet at a constant temp in the low 50s, all my fermentation has been really slow and consistent. It's great! BTW, when i did blackberry cider with the berries in primary it ended up very bitter- i learned later that this is a result of the cider...

Apple juice likes to cloud up no matter what you do. I heat pasteurize my stuff though, and by about a month later it's usually cleared on its own. Pectic enzyme will just get it there a little faster, but it probably won't HURT anything.

You should really do at least a month in secondary before bottling anyway. That said, I've racked to secondary from a still-active primary and it doesn't really hurt anything. In winemaking, that's actually really common, and while most cider is fermented to near-dryness in primary, it can be...

My last batch used a mix of plain apple juice and unfiltered farm cider. I find the cider lends the final product a cool, slightly caramel-like character that adds complexity without sourness; if you go whole-hog on it though you end up with cider that just tastes like farm cider that's turned a...

Could be lack of nutrients/insufficient aeration? I've used store brand juice from Kroger, Wal Mart and Target- it's all cheap stuff, but it all ferments for me.

I must be wine impaired because I just tried this stuff and i didn't get good results at all. I used the blueberry base, and attempted to use it in a scaled up version of a recipe I had made with great success using juice: 1 gal knudson blueberry juice. 1 tsp. yeast nutrient 1/2 cup...

You raise a good point. I'd been hoping to back-sweeten this for some foam, but if after 3 months the yeasties haven't done anything then that might just not happen. I guess I'll just bottle it whenever, then once it's sealed/carbed (if that can even still happen)/pasteurized it can age as needed.

So my first mead has now spent 3 months in secondary. I've read 50/50 advice about when to rack mead in secondary- some say at this point and others that I should just ignore the carboy until it's covered in the grime of ages and seven snows have fallen. Is there any long-term risk to not...

Just want to add that you should NOT pasteurize if on opening your bottle the foam fully escapes the neck. If you do there's a good chance they'll just detonate in your kettle like little fruity grenades.

Just finished, er, jacking. Yep, jackin' it in my kitchen. Impressions: -Jesus, this stuff is strong. The ice cider it was based on was already pretty potent but this is just hellacious. It tastes like someone melted apple jolly ranchers in whiskey. -The viscosity is pretty high. Much thicker...

A good rule of thumb is that it takes about 1/4 cup of sugar to carbonate a gallon of cider. So if you add more than that, and then arrest fermentation when carbonation is complete through refrigeration or pasteurization, any sugar on top of 1/4 cup will remain intact. I've been sweetening my...

I'm gonna try this this week with some cider I made from nothing but concentrate. It's frozen right now, so just a matter of sitting it out tonight, I guess! Think I'll just put a colander in a big stock pot and tip the jug into it. Will report results!

I actually like Michelob AND Stella's ciders. I guess I'm vulgar lol. Keep in mind that the US is actually one of the few remaining places where Stella Artois beer IS imported from Belgium and not just made locally.