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I just drank my last Fall 2012 cider, which was not treated with k-meta at bottle up, and it tasted fine. ABV was 10%-ish and pH 3.8-ish. For the '12 - '14 seasons, I universally didn't use k-meta at bottle up, and have yet to see any of the apple ciders/wines go bad, but all my berry and plum...

In my own experience over 5 seasons, a young cider can taste good at the time, but once it ages 9-12 months, in retrospect that same young cider tasted comparatively thin, and often had weird, sour and sulfur notes in it. I've done ciders with commercial yeasts where at 3 months I've said "it's...

Search for "vented silicon stopper". The flap lets them burp if pressure builds. I use them for bulk aging, and will be bottling up two 3ga carboys tomorrow that aged for a year, and they look great. --SiletzSpey

With <1/8" of head-space in 750ml bottles, I found it very hard to get past 18 months without serious oxidation in strawberry and plum wine. Per others here, I started bottling with a 1/4 - 1/2 dose of k-meta, and early signs are encouraging. --SiletzSpey

Like others, I use swing-top aka Grolsch-style bottles for all my cider and berry wine, and still have some good bottle-aged cider from 2013. I haven't aged berry wine successfully beyond 2+ years, but it's far more likely it's due to my lack of regular dosing with k-meta prior to and at bottle...

I'll be curious what others say, but I don't worry about pitching a few days late. The only risk of pitching late is that the wild yeast will have a chance to ramp up, before any commercial yeasts overtake them. --SiletzSpey

331 + 14 = 345

Since my wife and I just pressed 14 gallons of cider for our 2016 vintages, it was time to do our annual blind shootout of our year-old 2015 vintages involving 5 different yeasts. From the bottom up, the results were: #5 - Nottingham Compared to the others, had the thinnest taste and was dull...

Despite keeping a minimal head-space in 500ml and 750ml glass bottles, and for the last 2 years adding k-meta at bottle up, I'm finding that my strawberry, raspberry and blackberry wines start to oxidize within a year. The wines take on a rusty orange tinge, and with the raspberry and...

For yellow and yellow-red Asian plums (Shiro and Early Golden mix specifically), does anyone have a recommendation on what yeast to use? For seemingly red-ish Asian plums, I see several RC-212 recommendations. In the past I have tried EC-1118 and 71B-1122, but premature oxidation issues...

I'm jacking some cider, first time, and have taken 3.75ga down to 1.25ga so far. Now a bunch of questions are occurring to me: - I started with cider that had ~40 ppm of S02 (k-meta). Will jacking drive the S02 off, or concentrate it? - Once jacked to 30% ABV or more, is some S02 still...

Regarding MLF... at 6 months, most of my thrice-racked bulk-aging carboys still have very obvious bubbles rising up from the depths, but no bubbles are blowing out the airlock. I have been assuming MLF. Is it? This is the first year I've bulk aged beyond 2 months, and have been able to visually...

Without fail, I've always had cider taste substantially better after 6+ months of aging. I don't doubt that young cider can be good, but I think a lot of people who skip aging don't realize how much better their cider could be. --SiletzSpey

My cider carboys are 5 months old, and for the last 2+ months I've been getting active bubbles coming up from the depths, and they form a 1/16" - 1/4" ring of crystal-clear foam around the top edge of the cider. Even so, I don't have any noticeable airlock activity! Also, I didn't see any...

944 + 29 = 973 (973 / 121 posts = avg person is doing 8 gallons) --SiletzSpey

I regularly have fermentation's go for weeks, and I figure any nutrient deficiencies will show up later, so I head that off by adding nutrient early. I'm open to suggestions otherwise. --SiletzSpey

I had to laugh then wonder... when adding yeast nutrients (thiamine vitamin-B complex and diammonium phosphate) to an already vigorous ferment, can it further fire up the ferment? With 1-1/2ga buckets 2/3rds full, my plums with 71B yeast at ~69F were going very strong by day 3 without...

I made too much cider this fall ;-), so plan to downsize by trying my first batch of apple jack. In my personal experience, aging cider 6-18 months really helps (!). With apple jack, can I jack and then age, or should I age and then jack? I don't know if some of the magic that occurs...

I started doing raspberry, strawberry and plum wine in 2012 without any k-meta during rackings or at bottle-up. By 2014, the remaining bottles started to get funky, and by 2015, they were severely spoiled (oxidized). I use flip-top glass bottles with < 1/4" head-space. Based on forum feedback...

In my limited experience with brown sugar, it doesn't impart much color to the cider, so if your cider is brown, it indeed sounds "maderized". Among my 2012 and 2013 apple, berry and plum wines, none of which were treated with k-meta at bottle up but the head space was kept to a bare minimum...