Bear with me, I haven't kept good records. I started with 2 gallons of local cider and an entire vile of cider yeast and that's it. I don't remember the gravity numbers but I checked the gravity after about 3 weeks and beer smith said 6.8% alcohol. I assumed fermentation was done at this point but I never took another gravity reading.
I then let it sit for a few more weeks. To bottle I put 1/2 gallon of fresh cider in my bottling bucket and siphoned as much as I could from the fermenter without getting all the trub. I bottled it up and used a 16 ounce soda bottle as my test bottle. The bottle seemed to have reached max firmness after about 3 days and on day 5 wasn't any firmer so I assumed it was ready.
I decided to test it and assumed once I cracked the lid on the test bottle that there was no point of putting the lid back on and I should just drink it, is that true? Well after 5 days even though the bottle was pretty firm it hadn't really carbed up much.
Does this mean the 1/2 gallon of fresh cider wasn't enough to really carb it and I don't need to pasteurize? It's been in my basement this whole time, probably around 60 degrees.
I then let it sit for a few more weeks. To bottle I put 1/2 gallon of fresh cider in my bottling bucket and siphoned as much as I could from the fermenter without getting all the trub. I bottled it up and used a 16 ounce soda bottle as my test bottle. The bottle seemed to have reached max firmness after about 3 days and on day 5 wasn't any firmer so I assumed it was ready.
I decided to test it and assumed once I cracked the lid on the test bottle that there was no point of putting the lid back on and I should just drink it, is that true? Well after 5 days even though the bottle was pretty firm it hadn't really carbed up much.
Does this mean the 1/2 gallon of fresh cider wasn't enough to really carb it and I don't need to pasteurize? It's been in my basement this whole time, probably around 60 degrees.