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10 gal Louisburg Original, 6 gal Mangrove Jack's cider kit, 3 gal cortland/liberty blend, 1 gal Arkansas black and 3 gal perry. So 23 gal total! 55.25 + 23 = 78.25 I've also made 4 gal of ginger wine, 1.5 gal grapefruit wine and 2 gal feijoa wine, but I do them "cider style". Sparkling and...

If you bottle carbonated, then you're always going to have some yeast in there. I know this is basic, but let it sit for a month and be careful when you pour. The less yeast in your glass, the less leesy smell will come out with the CO2 bubbles. As for the bitter, I've found that...

Yeah, I started out at EC Kraus as well. They're not 100% correct about everything, but are a good starting point. As far as sulfite/campden addition goes, most commercial wine yeasts you buy these days can handle that initial does of sulfite, which is meant to kill/inhibit bacteria and wild...

The puree may have been overkill. I've settled on grating the ginger. It seems to be a nice compromise.

If you had the process/recipe that would be helpful. But for starters, how much ginger per gallon did you use? I typically use 4 oz per gallon and that turns out to be plenty gingery/spicy.

Did you make a traditional ginger beer (using a ginger bug and all that) or ginger cider or something else? I make a sparkling ginger drink (still not sure what to call it) that works well. What was your recipe/method?

Pectic enzyme added after fermentation will work, but much more slowly than if it were added prior to fermentation. The alcohol inhibits the enzyme, but doesn't "kill" it.

I've read that pears are notoriously difficult to press. Apparently adding rice hulls to the pomace helps, but I've never tried this so can't say for sure.

Was it one bottle or the whole batch? I've had the odd bottle in a batch fail to carbonate. Doesn't happen often, but when it does, I have no idea why.

I believe what you're talking about is called "ciderkin", where you mix the pressed pomace with water and ferment. Try searching the term and see if you can find a recipe. I've had it a couple of times and it's light and refreshing.

I just did something similar. Three batches of cider all from the same press, two started and one didn't. My best guess is that I had one bad/dead packet of yeast. I repitched a new packet in the non-active fermenter and it took off in about 12 hours...

I went on a bit of a spirit quest looking for the best non-fermentable sugar (to me) about a year ago. Most alcohol-sugars (ends in -ol) taste weird/bitter to me. So all of those were out. Splenda and stevia are even worse to me. Stumbled across Bocha-sweet. It's sugar derived from the...

I did a similar test for myself a year or two ago. My candidates were: Nottingham, S04, D47 and M02. Based on my preferences I ranked them first to last as follows: M02, S04, D47 then Nott. I've also used EC-1118 since then and it comes in just behind M02 for me.

If you put dry/crystalline yeast nutrient into an active fermentation what most likely happened is you caused it to degas, aggressively. Those CO2 bubbles need a nucleation point to form. Every one of the particles you added as a dry solid act as many, many, many nucleation points, resulting...

Racked the first batch (ginger in primary) a couple of days ago. Shredded ginger was in there for just over seven days. Pleasantly ginger-y so far. I'm interested to see if it mellows out over the next month or so.

Thanks for all the responses, this place is great. I decided to do a batch of each: one to primary and one to secondary, to see which I prefer. I'm going to be the one drinking most of this, so this approach makes the most sense to me. Thanks!

I'm planning on making a test batch of ginger-flavoured cider. I've settled on 1 oz per gal of grated ginger, but haven't decided if I'm going to add it to primary or secondary. Anyone tried this?

Xylose. The product name is "BochaSweet", sugar extracted from kabocha squash. I tried xylitol as well, but it still tasted weird to me so I tried the BochaSweet. Tasted exactly like sugar, is non-fermentable by yeasts used in brewing and cleansed me thoroughly and completely. Apparently...

At the suggestion of my local brew shop I tried backsweetening with BochaSweet, which turns out to be xylose. Not sure if it affects everyone the same way, but for me, it's a VERY effective laxative. Needless to say I won't be using it again.

I've never seen, tried or attempted to make an "ice perry", but the idea is intriguing. One note of caution. Pears are naturally high in sorbitol. If you concentrate pear juice, you're going to have quite a bit of sorbitol in there, which is a laxative. Otherwise, sounds like it would be fun...