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Yeah. I mean, that's what I measured, but like I said, the uncertainty from the meniscus, friction on the side of the tube that holds the cider and hydrometer, and general blurriness, almost certainly makes it so it can be anywhere from 1.05 to 1.07 probably. Maybe I'm using it incorrectly? I...

Hmmm. Well to be honest, I'm pretty sure the uncertainty in my hydrometer reading is around 0.01, so it's probably fine. I opened one yesterday (a week after bottling) and it gave a "fizz" sound and was carbonated, but I don't think it was overly carbonated or anywhere near in danger of...

Okay, do you think it matters whether it ages in the original carboy or once it's bottled? What exactly is happening during the aging after fermentation is done? I think the taste from the xylitol is fine, and it's a simple solution to having sweetness yet carbonation without kegging. Right now...

Oh, and another question: might the temperature it's at have a huge effect? We have the heating set in my house so it mostly just keeps it warm during the day, so it probably fluctuates by ~15 degrees F throughout the day.

So I've definitely gotten a huuuuuge improvement since the first batch, thanks to advice from people here telling me to switch from the yeast I was using (Lalvin EC-1118 wine yeast) to a Lallemand Nottingham Danstar Ale yeast. However, my ciders taste alright, but kind of like cheap wine...

Damn. Well, as I mentioned before, I already ditched them because I was pretty sure at the time they were nasty and infected, and I wanted to start the next batch... but now I kinda wish I had kept one to see if it somehow got better with age. Both batches did basically taste the same though.

Pickled_Pepper, thank you for the response. To be more specific, it smelled and tasted a little vinegar-y. Not just like cheap wine, legitimately bad. I've already poured it out, and I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure letting it sit longer would've just made it more terrible. I doubt it's...

Hi everyone! After a hiatus of 2 years or so, I have the cider hankerin' again. I figured I'd do a simple, small batch to get back into it. I did pretty much what I did last time (that had decent results), following this guide: http://www.makehardapplecider.com/ I'm using Musselman's apple...

Ok, I must have misunderstood something huge in reading through the cider forum. Then what is the chemical they add to halt the yeast? That's my secret plan, you've caught meeeeee There are lots of things I could actually do that would work fine and be waaaay more practical than what I'm...

Yeah, that's kinda what I was getting in my OP. Dunno how to make those things pressure dependent though.

Any chance your computer has that radar thingy? Or they could track it down somehow?

Well, probably not. Well, maybe for some other reason, but probably not cause of my idea for an invention. But I wanna put it out there anyway. Right, my invention. Please tell me if this is retarded, or already done. I'm not sure how big a deal it is in beermaking, but being new to cider...

I know patience is a big thing around here. But normally there's not really an upper limit to it -- if you let your brew ferment more, it just changes it a little (and probably for the better). Here, if I overshoot and wait too long, I'll get exploding bottles. So it's not so simple.

Huh... so I've been opening about one a day, or every other day, and they're still not really carbonated at all. 200g of brown sugar for a gallon should do it, right? I'm afraid it wasn't enough and the yeast just ate all the sugar and nothing happened... I added a lot because I wanted it to be...

Will I be able to notice at all from the outside of the bottle? I honestly didn't make that many, I have maybe 15 total, so each time I open one it sets me back a little. I'll make more next time :D

Also, my guess is that there's a surprising amount of gas in small amounts of dry ice, so it would be hard to accurately measure the right amount of dry ice so that your bottles don't explode. Remember, solids are a bunch of molecules packed very tightly. Gas, even at fairly high pressures, are...

Hmmm, it's day 3 today so I opened one today. It made a little noise, but not at all what a carbonated bottle should sound like, and it didn't taste at all carbonated...hmm...

Well, I did it. We'll see how horribly this goes. I did roughly 50g of brown sugar for each liter, because that got it at about the sweetness I wanted. I'm going to check a bottle for carbonation at day 3, and then check another bottle every 2 days. Is that a good plan? Thanks!!

So the consensus seems to be that pasteurization doesn't change the flavor -- that's nice. But what I really need to know is, how much sugar does carbonating actually eat up? For example, can I basically add sugar to my mix, make it the sweetness I'd like, and then assume that the amount of...

Ok, good to know. I basically have to check. But let's say I check with a bottle, and find that it's not carbonated enough yet. Is there a good way to recap the bottle and let it carbonate again, or is it basically wasted at that point?