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I had some old apple trees in the backyard. Every summer my labradors would eat the apples on the ground and by October they were as fat as two beer kegs. I figured if I was going to the trouble of picking fallen apples up every few days to keep those mutts from bursting at the seams I might...

Sulfite will not kill off your yeast, only stun it. Commercial yeast has been developed to tolerate sulfite. I add 50 ppm sulfite and priming sugar when I bottle. This is enough to kill of any bacteria but it does slow down the conditioning process. Maylar and BrewSomeMore have it right...

You are giving your roots away when you call it "home brew". Cider and wine are "made" or fermented, not brewed. Liquid and gas change volume with temp so even a small change in liquid volume will pull the liquid out of your fermentation lock if there is little headspace. Adding so much...

For those of us who buy juice from an orchard or grow our own apples, there is a season for cider. Here in the Northern Hemisphere, that season straddles the New Year so it makes the distinction of "how much cider in 2016" a little shakey. As I open another bottle of the 2015 and settle in...

Happy New Year!!! My 2016 harvest is processed and slowly fermenting until Spring. Time to move all of it to my cave where the temp will hover around 45 deg for the next few months. Some of my apples... Putting the squeeze on.. Spontaneous fermentation.. My microbial army on the march..

If you are starting it in a carboy, you may be suffocating your yeast before it can get established. Before adding anything or pitching another batch of yeast, I would warm it to 65-70, aerate it by pouring it into a plastic bucket, and covering the opening with cheesecloth so some air can get...

Yes, keep it cool. If it were my cider I would lower the temp to 50-55 deg if I could. The longer it takes to get to 1.012, the better the chances of your yeast population declining just enough to get bottle carbonation but stop before eating all the candy.

Watch out, it is probably not done. I would be surprised if it doesn't drop another ten points over the course of a month or two. Bottle it at 1.012 without any priming sugar and give the bottles a couple of months. You should monitor the carbonation carefully. If all goes well, you will...

Pressed the last of my Baldwins and got just over 8 gals. Thick, rich, and sweet (SG-1.064) with a bite (pH=3.3) and just enough tannin to slightly dry the mouth. This will be a wild ferment single variety cider. 1174.25 + 8 = 1182.25

Control of your carbonation level is a matter of taste and safety. You can control the level of carbonation by using a precise amount of priming sugar. This is not impossible with fruit juice but it would require some serious measurements of the sugar content of the fruit juice and calculating...

If you mixed dry priming sugar directly into your bottling bucket, it might not have completely dissolved before you started bottling. It is best to prepare a priming sugar syrup to avoid this. If you are sure you mixed your priming solution and cider completely, it is likely that you have a...

All of my apples get a ten minute bath in 30 gals of tap water with a cup of bleach when I bring them in from the orchard. This reduces the proportion that rot due to small injuries like splitting, wasp, rodent, and bird nibbles. Then I sweat my apples for four or more weeks before I turn them...

Another 4.5 gal fermenting with 100% wild fruit, SG=1.067 and a TA of 25! This is amazing juice with a real snap. When that sugar is gone, it will still be acid enough to dissolve a penny. I pitched Lalvin 71B to reduce the malic as much as possible. I expect to pitch ML bacteria when the SG...

Twenty more gallons from neighborhood trees, wild ferment. About 100 lbs of apples left to press when they fully ripen. 1,075.75 + 20 = 1,095.75

An SG of 1.062 sounds a bit high unless you got your hands on some exceptional apples this season. So you might have some reason to suspect your hydrometer is not accurate. Check your hydrometer against distilled water at the temp the hydrometer is rated at. It should be 1.000. If it is a...

You are at a critical point in your process. Good measurements are really important. You should be using a good hydrometer or at least one you have checked against distilled water and take all your measurements at the temperature your hydrometer is rated for (should be printed on hyrdrometer)...

Kharnynb, that is a really cool jug!

It will go all the way to 1.000 or even a little lower so you are on track to have a dry cider. At this point, you could prime it, add enough sulfite to protect it and bottle it. In general, the addition of 4.2 g/l corn sugar will give you 1 vol of CO2 plus whatever you already have in...

28 gals in primary under wild yeast fermentation. 936.75 + 28 = 964.75 Several hundred lbs of apples still to press.

My wild ferment has had its first ten point drop and it is time to move it out of the drums and into carboys to reduce head space to a minimum and leave the first crop of lees behind. I have avoided film yeast and mold so far. The initial ferment was just enough to cap the must with a beautiful...