Jawbreaker
Member
greetings friends!
please first allow me to excuse my complete lack of brewing know how and terminology on every level. i live in oak glen, ca, in a pple country, and so i live and work around the orchards and have in the past thrown some cider into a bottle and put a baloon on it and that has been the extent of my brewing. however, 3 weeks ago i went to the home brew place and bought some goods and now 3 weeks later i took my cider out for the "hydrometer" testing (which yielded the same level as water... does that mean nothing fermented?), and i think i have botched it (5 gallons) because;
1. the hydrometer reading is at about 1.002 (but this is the same as the water i tested) and i didnt test my sample cider before i "pitched" it so i cant really see if there was a difference.
2. i tasted the cider tonight and it has a slight smell of booze and slight taste of it as well, but to be honest, my ghetto way with the ballon and cider in a milk jug tatsed more boozy than this. also the cider right now tastes pretty bad, almost mettalic.
3. also there is a layer of white cottage cheese looking sediment floating on top of the cider, and it looks like it might be the yeats.
so... im wondering why i my hydrometer has the same reading for my cider as it does for water, does this mean that i dont really h ave any booze in there? should i even bother taking it to the next step of botteling or should i just freeze distill it and have make some rubbing alcahol to show off to the boys and induce a case of the jake leg walk?
thanks for any pointers for m y probably novice questions.
NOTE: despite my failed batch here, this is really fun, can anyone reccomend an exhaustive and comprehesive book on cider/beer making?
please first allow me to excuse my complete lack of brewing know how and terminology on every level. i live in oak glen, ca, in a pple country, and so i live and work around the orchards and have in the past thrown some cider into a bottle and put a baloon on it and that has been the extent of my brewing. however, 3 weeks ago i went to the home brew place and bought some goods and now 3 weeks later i took my cider out for the "hydrometer" testing (which yielded the same level as water... does that mean nothing fermented?), and i think i have botched it (5 gallons) because;
1. the hydrometer reading is at about 1.002 (but this is the same as the water i tested) and i didnt test my sample cider before i "pitched" it so i cant really see if there was a difference.
2. i tasted the cider tonight and it has a slight smell of booze and slight taste of it as well, but to be honest, my ghetto way with the ballon and cider in a milk jug tatsed more boozy than this. also the cider right now tastes pretty bad, almost mettalic.
3. also there is a layer of white cottage cheese looking sediment floating on top of the cider, and it looks like it might be the yeats.
so... im wondering why i my hydrometer has the same reading for my cider as it does for water, does this mean that i dont really h ave any booze in there? should i even bother taking it to the next step of botteling or should i just freeze distill it and have make some rubbing alcahol to show off to the boys and induce a case of the jake leg walk?
thanks for any pointers for m y probably novice questions.
NOTE: despite my failed batch here, this is really fun, can anyone reccomend an exhaustive and comprehesive book on cider/beer making?