Ok december 11 I made my first hard cider. Nothing too crazy. I made three gallons, useing smucker apple butter boiled into 3 quarts or so of water.
then i pasturized some apple cider and dumped that all into a 3 gallon main fermenter. Pitched yeast at about 90 F.
Everything started out great. within six hours i had my airlock going like snot bubbles on a 5 year old with asthma!
three days later i took 2 pounds of sugar cubes and dumped that in there for good measure.
before the yeast was pitched i had a SG of 1.050, and today since it has been a little over a week, i took a reading ( and small taste) of about 1.000 maybe lower the bubbles were in the way, so an accurate reading was a little hard.
It is so dry!!! and potent too. I know my S G was 1.050 but with the added 2 pounds of sugar i can only imagine its got to be up there in A V
Now the yeast i used was what the brew store recommended.
it was a red star wine yeast called cote des blancs.
I imagine this is why my hard cider is tasting more like wine/champagne than hard cider.
but what im wondering is this, everyone is going on about how aging will make this taste better, and obviously i wasnt hoping to make three gallons of apple wine. so will this taste better after racking, and should i rack it now even though its still bubbling once every 25 seconds? how long should i age this?
and can anyone tell me why the brew store would recommend wine yeast over something a little less potent?
seriously i like alcohol as much as the next guy, but after three sips my tongue was numb and i felt like i could pass out...
then i pasturized some apple cider and dumped that all into a 3 gallon main fermenter. Pitched yeast at about 90 F.
Everything started out great. within six hours i had my airlock going like snot bubbles on a 5 year old with asthma!
three days later i took 2 pounds of sugar cubes and dumped that in there for good measure.
before the yeast was pitched i had a SG of 1.050, and today since it has been a little over a week, i took a reading ( and small taste) of about 1.000 maybe lower the bubbles were in the way, so an accurate reading was a little hard.
It is so dry!!! and potent too. I know my S G was 1.050 but with the added 2 pounds of sugar i can only imagine its got to be up there in A V
Now the yeast i used was what the brew store recommended.
it was a red star wine yeast called cote des blancs.
I imagine this is why my hard cider is tasting more like wine/champagne than hard cider.
but what im wondering is this, everyone is going on about how aging will make this taste better, and obviously i wasnt hoping to make three gallons of apple wine. so will this taste better after racking, and should i rack it now even though its still bubbling once every 25 seconds? how long should i age this?
and can anyone tell me why the brew store would recommend wine yeast over something a little less potent?
seriously i like alcohol as much as the next guy, but after three sips my tongue was numb and i felt like i could pass out...