Any one gallon batch recipes?

[captnamerca]

Hi everybody...this is my first post, and the reason I signed up here.

I tried to make a one gallon batch of hard cider and it came out AWFUL. It had a nasty sour/bitter taste and was pretty undrinkable, but that's not the reason behind my question.

I'm glad it was only one gallon that went wrong because 5 gallons would be a disaster. So with that in mind...

Does anyone have a good recipe for a one gallon batch of cider? I don't have any extra 5 gallon carboys (I have a porter fermenting in my only one right now), but I do have one gallon glass jugs. Maybe all I need is to do some math and divide some of these great-sounding recipes by 5, but maybe not. I don't know, hence the question to the experts.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Ace_Club]

Just scale down EdWort's recipe.

1 Gallon batch:

1 gallon Apple Juice
6.5 oz. Corn Sugar
1 packet Montrachet yeast

 

[captnamerca]

Dang, that was quick. And easy.

Thanks, Ace. Where is EdWorts recipe? (So I know how long for primary and secondary)

Nice av, BTW. Unfortunately, I DO need instructions to know how to BREW!

 

[beninan]

Maybe all I need is to do some math and divide some of these great-sounding recipes by 5

for the most part, BINGO!

 

[PSUinDC]

Tomorrow I will be making my first cider. I'm actually going to test out 3 different recipes in 1 gallon fermentors:

- Orange zest & a little orange juice & ginger
- Cinnamon / nutmeg / cloves
- plain, and I'll be backsweetening with honey at the end.

For all 3, I will be adding ~0.33lb of brown sugar pre-fermentation. I will also be putting these in wine bottles and stove-top pasteurizing at the end. The 2 "spiced" ones, I will be making a "tea" from the items and putting that tea in the fermenter in the beginning.

 

[dinnerstick]

just a suggestion, be careful with the ginger and cloves, these can really take over.
and the stove-top pasteurizing is intended specifically for capped carbonated bottles, whereas you appear to be making still cider and want to kill the yeast before back-sweetening?

 

[PSUinDC]

just a suggestion, be careful with the ginger and cloves, these can really take over.
and the stove-top pasteurizing is intended specifically for capped carbonated bottles, whereas you appear to be making still cider and want to kill the yeast before back-sweetening?

I'm going with 3 tbsp of grated ginger, and 1 clove for my 1 gallon batch (saw a few people on this forum comment that this was about right, so we'll see).

As for pasteurizing, I thought the whole idea was that you needed to kill the yeast so that it didn't start eating up your back-sweetening ingredients? If I backsweeten these right before putting into bottles, wont they continue to eat up the backsweetening ingredients, therefor carbonate the bottle? I don't want bottle bombs here.

Forgive my ignorance, I'm a newb.

 

[dinnerstick]

yup they will keep eating your sugar unless you get rid of them, but in wine bottles you will get popped corks rather than bombs!
since you don't need to kill the yeast after bottling, as for carbonated cider, you could consider an easier approach to get rid of them before bottling, such as cold crashing, chemical treatment (strictly anathema to me but many will advise this option) or bulk pasteurization (heat the whole thing to 65C for 5 minutes and your yeast id dead), all of which will then allow you to bulk age / clear the cider further before bottling, if you're into that sort of thing. there are many threads on cold crashing and chemical weapon approaches on this site

 

[PSUinDC]

yup they will keep eating your sugar unless you get rid of them, but in wine bottles you will get popped corks rather than bombs!
since you don't need to kill the yeast after bottling, as for carbonated cider, you could consider an easier approach to get rid of them before bottling, such as cold crashing, chemical treatment (strictly anathema to me but many will advise this option) or bulk pasteurization (heat the whole thing to 65C for 5 minutes and your yeast id dead), all of which will then allow you to bulk age / clear the cider further before bottling, if you're into that sort of thing. there are many threads on cold crashing and chemical weapon approaches on this site

Yeah, I want to avoid chemical methods. Do you think that pasteurizing inside of the wine bottles is a bad idea? Or that I should do it in bulk (in the 1 gallon container?)?

I have a kegerator setup already, so once I decide on a recipe I want, my 5 gallon batch will go directly into a corny in the fridge, which will kill the yeast. For these small batches though, I want to toss them into bottles, so I think pasteurizing the bottles after corking (or maybe before?) is the best idea.