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Unfortunately, not all of my friends' palates are qualified to enjoy a crisp, dry, French-style cider.

I have an apple port (apple cider plus grape must, 12% ABV, ending at an FG of 1.045) in a 5-gal Balcones corn whiskey barrel right now. I previously had a cyser in the barrel, which turned out fantastic. I have found that swelling the barrel with steam works nicely to re-hydrate the wood...

An interesting study by Escarpment Labs on a variety of Kveik yeasts and their pitch rates, including Horindal and Voss. "it looks like there is a trend for increased aroma intensity for some of the kveiks (Voss and Hornindal) as the pitch rate decreases."

MLF usually happens after yeast is done fermenting. Malolactic bateria will use the fine lees (yeast) for nutrients as they convert malic acid to lactic acid. So often a cider will go clear once the yeast is done and has flocculated, then the cider will sit for a while, and then get hazy again...

My wild cider looks very similar to yours. Mold on cider looks more like the mold you would find on an old loaf of bread; a filamentous or dusty covering of blue, green, black, and other alarming colors.

1118 has very little galactosidic activity, that is it isn't very good at releasing aroma compounds from thiol precursors, so it tends to make a very plain cider. Why not try a more aromatic yeast such as QA23, 58W3, R4600, D47, etc. to maximize the aroma compounds to go with brett profile.

The sulfur aromas are probably the result of nutrient limitation at high activity rates stimulated by the elevated temperature; Kveik strains are known to have high nutrient requirements. Also, 110 is pushing the envelope for most Kveik yeast, so you could have some yeast stress also producing...

I have a split 6-gal batch of cider freshly kegged that used Imperial's Kveiking blend. I added 3 lbs wheat LME to the 1.045 juice to boost the gravity and body, then let cider (now a graff) ferment at 70F till it hit 1.020. I then split the batch, racking the first half onto pineapple with...

yes! This is the $15 solution. You can get a sulfite test kit from many homebrew stores that carry wine supplies. The test kit will give you an idea of when you can pitch yeast, somewhere around 25 ppm or maybe a little less. I shoot for 50 ppm in my juice to get "clean" fermentation profiles...

I like American white oak with medium toast for ciders and fruit wines. I buy oak sticks on Ebay, cut them into cubes, boil them for 5 minutes to remove excess tannins, then soak them in spirits for 3+ months before adding to carboy or keg. Brandy works well for fruit wines as it imparts...

You can backsweeten bottles with a sorbitol simple syrup. Sorbitol is a natural sugar found in pears and other fruits and it is non-fermentable, plus it does not taste artificial.

Acid are dissolved in solution, so they won't change with time (i.e., won't precipitate out) unless you have malolactic fermentation by bacteria, unlikely in your case. What might happen over time is that some tannins will settle out with any yeast in the bottles, so the cider may become less...

HDPE or UHMW plastic should be available at your local plastics supplier. easy to cut, drill, tap, screw, and sanitize. Good stuff for this kind or project and you can often get scraps or remnants for cheap.

Since you are cold-crashing the keg, how about using gelatine to help settle out the yeast, then rack straight to the keg once the cider is clear? Same gelatine method as described on the Brulosophy page, with the addition of SMB and potassium sorbate, plus your sweetener in the keg. Skip the...

you can do that, but malic acid is fairly "sharp" tasting, so in retrospect, I'd add lactic acid which has a "softer" acidity. Acid blend contains malic, citric, and tartaric acid. Might as well just use lactic since that is the end-product of malo-lactic fermentation, which is generally...

Indeed, let's not recommend dumping the cider based on knee-jerk "gut feeling" paranoia. AMEN! One thing to consider is that yeast will uptake and bind yeast, thereby reducing zinc concentrations in cider/beer/mead/etc. Additionally, an excess of zinc will inhibit or kill yeast, as suggested...

71B goes well above 12% if sufficient nutrients are present. I think it's Moonlight Meadery's go-to yeast, and they go >17% ABV. You can probably add a little nutrient, move the carboy to a warmer spot, and swirl it daily to rouse the yeast and degass CO2. That said, if you jack it double the...

Sulfite taste threshold is around 100 ppm total SO2 in a bottled wine (thresholds vary by person), so adding 50 ppm for long-term aging where the SO2 will dissipate over time (become bound to organics or partition to headspace) should leave you well below taste thresholds. Just keep in mind that...

I've used oxyclean on apples that I picked along a road and were covered in persistent road grit. A very dilute solution rinses off fine and takes the road grit with it.... but then the apples ripen and oxidize super fast, go figure! I had to press the next day because the apples became dark and...

Many yeasts produce secondary metabolites when they are stressed or underpitched, so your observations make sense. Adding nutrients promotes healthy yeast and strong fermentations, which in general means fewer secondary metabolites produced. I don't add nutrients to cider when using wine yeast...