Recent content by PiecefulToker

Do yourself a huge favor and invest in a bottle of Starsan and a spray bottle. Mix up a gallon at a time (use distilled water, and it will stay stale for months), then fill your spray bottle when needed. I wish I had discovered this technique LONG ago, it saves time and money, and makes...

Nope, nothing wrong with that. Honey has antibiotic properties, and if you add the yeast right after you mix the batch, the yeast should quickly overwhelm anything else that might be in there. This method also helps to make sure you have adequately the oxygenated must. I agree with gratus...

How long did you let it "breathe" before you smelled and tasted the sample? I have noticed a drastic change in smell and taste when compared immediately after drawing the sample and after letting it sit for 5-10 minutes. YMMV.

What they said... cold crashing will not kill yeast, only make it dormant. If those bottles with residual sugar come out of the fridge and warm up, the yeast will wake up and you could make bottle bombs. It would be a a much better idea to cold crash in the jug, then rack, then bottle. Read...

Welcome to Homebrewtalk! I am a relative newbie to cider making myself, but I should be able to answer some of your questions. Also, all this has been discussed before if you search the forum. Also, check out the "Apfelwein" threads in the "Wine" forum... there are literally hundreds of pages of...

Before I left for Christmas for 2 weeks, I split a packet of Nottingham between 2 gallon jugs of pasteurized cider and set the thermostat on 60. When I came back on the 30th, the gravity of both of these was between 1.015-1.020. Tasted good, so I racked and cold crashed. I have been drinking...

^^ This. A gallon of cider will give you about 7 or 8 12oz bottles, so you will want to make at least a few gallons at a time. Your best option might be to find apple cider in glass jugs. I have seen and used "Murray's Cider" that comes in 1 gallon and half gallon glass jugs. Whole Foods also...

In case you missed it, I used 5g of Nottingham on this batch and it is bubbling like crazy with a thick krausen this morning. Total liquid was 4.5gal apple juice, 1gal water, OG was 1.100 before the extra .5gal juice addition yesterday. I'd like to bottle carb and start drinking this in a few...

Added another half gallon of juice and 1/2tsp Fermaid-K.

Hi all, Started a batch of cider/graff/braggot last night with: 3lb amber DME ~4.5lb honey 4gal apple juice/cider 1gal purified water 1 5g packet Nottingham ale yeast rehydrated OG = 1.100 Brought 1gal water to a boil, added the DME and turned off the heat. Covered and let sit...

If you are only keeping it in there for a month, you should definitely be fine. Better Bottles are also great alternatives to glass carboys, try doing a search on the forum. Also, if you have not gotten rid of that cracked carboy, please do so immediately. Those things have racked up more...

Swing top bottles are great and easy to use. Find a local bar that serves Grolsch, and ask if they will save some bottles for you... I got a good number for free that way. Recently I bought a case of German Pilsner (Flensburger I think it's called?) in 12oz swing-top bottles for ~$23... Not bad...

Even as a novice mazer, I can answer this question. If you made the batch back in April, it is probably just starting to balance out and develop more complex flavors. Mead ages very well, and people often wait 1-2 years before considering it drinkable. Theoretically it could last for a VERY long...

Didn't even measure it. Just plain juice with no extra fermentables, so I figure probably lower in the 1.040-1.050 range.

I bought a gallon of pasteurized cider (Murray's I think it's called), added about 1/4 cup of honey, and half a packet of Nottingham without rehydrating. After 17 days I racked it off into another jug and just drank it from the fridge like that. I poured a gallon of Whole Foods pasteurized...