FG question

[mallard75]

I am an all grain beer guy mainly... But to repay my SWMBO for letting me brew during her recent pregnancy, I made a 1 gallon batch of cider from Central Market's organic honey crisp apple juice. I simply pitched wyeast ale yeast and let it go. It bubbled in the air lock for three weeks then I bottled for carbonation. Abv was about 5.5% with no added sugar. It turned out really really (surprisingly) good. It was ready by the time my son came home from the hospital and let's just say the pent up demand for cider made it last not so long. So... By popular demand I decided to brew a 4.5 gallon batch for her.

So went to HEB (local grocer in tx) and could not find honey crisp juice so settled for 4 gallons of Central Market organic apple juice. (It has real bits of apples so you know its good). Here is my recipe:

4 gallons of organic apple juice (no preservatives)
6 oz of organic local maple sugar mixed with heated half gallon of martinellis organic apple juice
BRY Yeast dry Yeast (west coast ale)

OG 1.059

What should I expect for an FG?

And does anyone have an opinion of how this will turn out? (Yes I am soliciting opinions). I plan to filter post fermenter and rack to available corney keg for forced carbing.

Cheers

 

[Bearclaw215]

You should get pretty close to if not all the way to dry.

The juice is fructose and glucose, The maple syrup is almost entirely sucrose. All simple sugars and easily used by the yeast unlike some of the unusable sugars we get in beer from from our grains.

Sounds like a good recipe to me. Should be pretty light and crisp.

Congrats on your son! Just think in a few years you can teach him to brew with you!

 

[mallard75]

Thanks! And thank you for the feedback


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[phug]

out of curiousity, what grade maple syrup did you use? is it very dark in colour? I've read that the darker the maple syrup, the greater chance that there will be some, not much unfermentable sugar left from it.

 

[ACbrewer]

OP - a 'dry' or finish point for most wines/ciders/meads is somewhere between .990 and .999. Ok technically dry goes a little higher, but due to there being no non fermentable mass, you get close to 100% attenuation if you don't ABV staturate the yeast - that is get above the tolerance of the yeast.

I'd expect you to finish about .993 to .996 but that is more a guess than true knowledge.

 

[mallard75]

Not sure of the grade. And after looking if up I realize that it is not exactly "local" (to Texas).



It is pretty light. Coombs family farms organic maple sugar. If it is not fully fermentable, would that leave residual sweetness? If be okay with that.


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[phug]

mistake, I thought you were using maple syrup, which has grades, depending on flavour and colour. Maple Sugar, I'm not sure if it has gradings like that. any residual sweetness it leaves will probably only be a couple of gravity points. You may not notice any significant sweetness, it may be a matter of only being a teensy bit less dry. I think you're going to have to take the wait and see approach.

 

[mallard75]

Thanks. I will let you know how it turns out. The last batch I made bubbled for three weeks. Is that normal for cider? Wondering how long it will ferment. It's going like crazy at the moment.


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[Bearclaw215]

Bubbling isn't the best way to gauge fermentation. Just check your gravity and if it's stable for a few days your done. Any bubbling after fermentation is the liquid releasing co2 it can't contain from either being disturbed or rising in temp.
I wouldn't think fermentation would last more than about a week but checking the gravity will really determine that.

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