Did I just screw up?

[cjsplc]

Thanks for the input. I have been cleaning them as I go, and letting them sit with a bleach/water in them for 1 day before drying them out. I don't have any smell from them, and I think cleaning them out right away with the bleach helps.

Onto my cider. The first batch is bubbling every 15-16 seconds. It has calmed down considerably! This was cider and 2/3 cup sugar. The second batch is still going very strong (Cranberry/Rasberry/Tea/Cider/Sugar/Lemon Juice).

I took the saran wrap off, and decided to make my point of ghetto fabulous. I called grandma in the old country. She uses a latex glove on the bottle. Waits till it gets filled up, heats up a needle and makes a very small hole in the middle finger. She says it makes easy to know when the fermenting is done! At 92 years old she has been fermenting for a little while. However, she asked me to bring her some airlocks next time I go back. (Even she admits it is better).

I am going to taste the first batch today, and let the second keep going.

We have an update here, too. The champagne yeast catches fermented completely 1.050 to 1.000. You can imagine how intensely dry it is. We put it into kind of secondary by siphoning it into a big pot, cleaning the milk jug, and siphoning it back into the clean jug. It's in the fridge ready for bottling. The ale yeast got off to a rough start and is now at about 1.027 from 1.050. We'll probably crash it at like 1.015 or so. How much do you fill your bottles?

 

[aobolenskiy]

I just crashed mine too, and it was kind of dry (I think the sugar helped) and had a bite to it. I filled it last night leaving the small part to the top of the bottle, and then let them sit out from 8:00 pm to 10: am this am. They were hard, and I think carbonated enough so I stuck em in the fridge. Today I opened a bottle and it tasted great!

Note: When I tasted mine it was too dry for my taste. I added a half teaspoon of sugar, and a small amount of apple juice to each bottle. This did the trick to make it crisp and slightly sweet. I was using 1 liter bottles.

Additionally when I siphoned out of my 1 gallon glass juice bottle I left about 1 inch with the smegma on the bottom. I then added 1 cup sugar, 1 cup black tea, and most of a gallon of Mott's store bought juice. This evening it is bubbling away! This should save more money by reusing the same yeast again!

Try to add a little juice to yours and see if that helps with the flavor. :rockin: