Animalmutha
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- Joined
- Dec 29, 2012
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A funny thing happened to me while racking to a secondary.
I was finding it hard to keep the auto siphon going. In an attempt to restart the siphon I tried to pump the auto siphon again and it was very difficult. I was using a long bottle fill adapter into the secondary carboy to help avoid oxidation. I took the whole auto siphon and fill adapter mechanism to the deep sink for inspection. Upon disassembly I found brown confetti paper in both the auto siphon uptake and the bottle fill adapter outlet. After thinking hard about why anyone would make brown confetti, I tried to remember if I did anything funky that would have prompted me to force paper through a carboy opening. I would have had to do it on purpose. It would be difficult to accidentally drop this much paper into a carboy and not know it.
I held the paper up to the light and noticed a hint of grain that was familiar - it was apple peals. I used mashed apples with their skins to try and capture the entire apple flavor. They were all squared off on the edges and looked like confetti because I used a knife to break them down before mashing. I had forgotten I did that because it took so long to ferment in my cold basement, and I had three other batches going (I also may or may not have been testing a bunch of experimental mead while making the cider base).
So from now on, If I want to capture apple skin flavor, I am pealing them into a grain bag and suspending the bag in the carboy. It sucked to get the rest out of the primary, so take heed if you use any mashed apples.
I was finding it hard to keep the auto siphon going. In an attempt to restart the siphon I tried to pump the auto siphon again and it was very difficult. I was using a long bottle fill adapter into the secondary carboy to help avoid oxidation. I took the whole auto siphon and fill adapter mechanism to the deep sink for inspection. Upon disassembly I found brown confetti paper in both the auto siphon uptake and the bottle fill adapter outlet. After thinking hard about why anyone would make brown confetti, I tried to remember if I did anything funky that would have prompted me to force paper through a carboy opening. I would have had to do it on purpose. It would be difficult to accidentally drop this much paper into a carboy and not know it.
I held the paper up to the light and noticed a hint of grain that was familiar - it was apple peals. I used mashed apples with their skins to try and capture the entire apple flavor. They were all squared off on the edges and looked like confetti because I used a knife to break them down before mashing. I had forgotten I did that because it took so long to ferment in my cold basement, and I had three other batches going (I also may or may not have been testing a bunch of experimental mead while making the cider base).
So from now on, If I want to capture apple skin flavor, I am pealing them into a grain bag and suspending the bag in the carboy. It sucked to get the rest out of the primary, so take heed if you use any mashed apples.
