50 gallons of Hard Cider in a barrel

[BrewinJack]

Sorry about the knee, i didnt think the idea with the dolly would be that difficult... have moved full 60 gallon water heaters (about 400 pounds) all by my self with one, but granted never more then 60 feet or so and its normally just outside to dump them over to drain the water out... other then that sounds like your getting things going... you used 50 pounds of sugar on treated cider which probably put your OG pretty high up... id guess like 1.07ish... your yeast is gonna take time to get started thats alot of mass to cover... i had a five gallon batch of cider take 3 days to start once, but then again the OG on that was about 1.25ish... it will just take time to start, unless it was treated with chemicals prior to sale... then when you put in the Tabs last week you effectively shocked the system...think of it as like a swiming pool where the two weeks prior to first use you are required to overload the pool with a very large ammount of chemicals to completely clean the system, effectivly bring it to a zero level... if it were treated prior to sale then you brought to to that zero level and now the yeast is having to start completely from scratch... it wont hurt anything i dont think, it will jsut take longer to start because an entirely new enviorment must be built for the yeast to grow... i have had this problem with Camp Tabs before, which is entirely not there fualt that I'm an idiot but i would just as soon not use them... unfortunatly you had no choice it would take you days to pasturize 55 gallons of cider with heat and probably cause a massive contamiation problem in the progress, and likely unlike me you read the directions properly before adding them... if the cider wasnt treated before sale then liekly you are still having same problem just on a smaller scale... what type of yeast are you useing??? good luck let us know how this turns out... oh and when the thing finally starts your living room is gonna smell like a dirty apple press... you might want to actully think about moving it somewhere more secluded, sorry

Cheers

 

[Tusch]

Warning drunk:

Why do you use the ellipsis instead of periods... All the time...

 

[BrewinJack]

Warning drunk:

Why do you use the ellipsis instead of periods... All the time...

Warning not drunk

No... i also use periods. I used to watch... alot of old... Star Treck and tend... to.. talk like captin... Kirk... actully it doesnt have anything to do with it i actully end up thinking about what im gonna say before i am done typeing my previous statment. Its simple... to me it is

Cheers

 

[Kauai_Kahuna]

No... i also use periods. I used to watch... alot of old... Star Treck and tend... to.. talk like captin... Kirk... actully it doesnt have anything to do with it i actully end up thinking about what im gonna say before i am done typeing my previous statment. Its simple... to me it is
Cheers

That sounded more like yoda than Kirk.
But... My God.... 50 GALLONS of cider. - I.. Don't... Think... that would be good for the body.
Unless it is served by an Orian slave girl. Scotty, beam her up.

 

[BrewinJack]

That sounded more like yoda than Kirk.
But... My God.... 50 GALLONS of cider. - I.. Don't... Think... that would be good for the body.
Unless it is served by an Orian slave girl. Scotty, beam her up.

Yoda say, that is is not the volume of the cider which a problem to your body may present, but the motion of your body after the volume is consumed...yes... The slave girl of Orian, will help with this, she must.

Cheers

 

[curbdawg]

Orian slave girl.........YES

 

[blackwater]

Love this forum!

Well the cider tube has stopped bubbling. It went great guns for about 2 weeks and has now slowed to nothing. Is that it???? Can't be right????? I can still here some simmering when I put my ear to the barrel but no bubbles in the water bucket that the tube rests in.

Huh?

Should I Add stuff or not or just chill out and let it happen. I tasted some last night and it tasted very yeasty. Blah....

Wish I new more about it.

 

[Tusch]

If you have the ability, take out a small sample and take a hydrometer reading. Personally, I would let that sucker sit for minimum 3-4 months before even thinking about bottling.

 

[tallor242]

A stop to vigorous fermentation after a couple weeks is pretty normal. Since yeast reproduction is going to be exponential during fermentation, it doesn't matter whether you're doing 1 gallon or 500. Time to let it sit for the rest of winter. Taking (and drinking) hydrometer readings can't hurt, though!

 

[felix]

yep, sounds like a nice normal cider fermentation to me. You'll need a (sanitized) wine "thief" from your local home brewing supply shop to take a sample.
Good luck

 

[beala]

4 pages in and still no pictures?! Seriously, we need pics of this monster!

EDIT: 5 pages in

 

[blackwater]

Here's my barrel!!

 

[blackwater]

Insert image didn't work

 

[ChshreCat]

An invisible barrel!!!! Cool!!!

 

[blackwater]

http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/9278/63042487nf0.jpg

How bout this link?

 

[Brandon O]

nice!!! what a great deal for a barrel

 

[CATFISHER74]

Alright! I did it. 550 lbs of whiskey barrel rolled off while on a piano dolly and onto my knee!!! After screaming for my buds to get it off of me and lying on the ground for a 1/2 hour in pain we proceeded to push this thing 80 ft. along my dirt basement floor as the wheels dug into the ground. We finally tipped it up and got it out the door into the night. We then put the barrel on a hand truck dolly and strapped it in. We laid down the dolly so the barrel was on its side with the dolly underneath. Realizing that we had about 125 yards to push this thing on the snow covered NH ground with ice underneath I suggested that we tie the dolly to the back of a truck and pull it out of the back yard, around to the front of the house, and into the front living room. So one of us drove the truck and two of us balanced the barrel on the dolly making sure it didn't roll. This took a very loooong time. We looked ridiculous!!

Please next time get video of your process!

 

[jaginger]

I thought about doing this but realized it's a heck of a lot easier to do in 5 gal batches!

 

[harrydrez]

I wonder how it turned out.

 

[justineaton]

I have over 90 Apple trees at my uncle's that he lets me pick as many as I want from, I have already made 15 gallons of hard cider and 5 gallons of Apple wine (still going). Plus another 37 gallons that we either froze, drank fresh, made vinegar with (10 gallons) sold, our gave away. It costs me .40 per gallon to get it pressed. I just bought two 55 gallon food grade plastic barrels and I'm filling one of them up later this week. I plan on adding potassium to kill the bad stuff and then adding sugar and yeast to it. I'm not sure if I want to put it in the basement or just leave it outside and let it freeze, my cousins grandpa lets his freeze in a 50 gallon whisky barrel and then melts to the center with a hot poker to get the unfrozen alcohol out, he says it is pretty much pure alcohol. It is a little late in the year for me to do that now because it is already to cold to ferment good here in Michigan but I am curious if it will just freeze and then when it gets warm thaw out and start fermenting again. I will probably just put it in the basement this year. The barrel cost me $15 and it will be a little over $20 to fill it. Any advise?

 

[justineaton]

I will post pictures when I get it going.

 

[roolootoo]

can anyone sell me 50 gallons of cider in a 50 gallon drum thats at least 5% and deliver to the North-East of Great Britain, for a decent price? check upload this is how I found your forum