First Attempt - Appfelwein & SMaSH

[TheCADJockey]

Hey guys and girls, I just bottled my first beer after getting back into the hobby and ended up with a great product thanks to all the help from the friendly people on this forum. I must however get more going before I run out, which will happen very soon with my bachelor party coming up. My fiance is ready to help and we are going to do a SMaSH in primary FV and fill the carboy with appfelwein. We therefore have a few seemingly trivial questions before doing so:

Appfelwein:
5 gal. apple juice, no preservatives/no additives, we found this but they all seem to boast 150% extra vitamin C! Is this cool? We didn't shop around too horribly much but the closest we found to straight apple juice was like this. So, maybe its a dumb question but just wanted to make sure.

SMaSH:
I have a ton of Muntons Plain Light DME that was given to me and a freezer full of Nugget hops I harvested this year. That being said, does this make sense?

Boil 3.5 gal. with 3lbs DME for 60 minutes
60m - 3oz. nugget...
20m - 1.5 oz nugget...
15m - 1.5 oz nugget...
5m - 1.5 oz nugget...
3lbs DME at flame out...
Top off to 5 gal. - cool - pitch US-05 - lock it away at 60-65 deg (not much choice with temp. yet)

I appreciate anyone's input as well as personal experience with either similar situations. Thanks in advance as always.

 

[phug]

Don't fear the vitamin C/ascorbic acid. you'll almost always find it, and it won't harm your fermentation.

 

[TheCADJockey]

Don't fear the vitamin C/ascorbic acid. you'll almost always find it, and it won't harm your fermentation.

Ok thanks phug. Definitely going through with this just for how easy it seems to be. Was thinking about carbonating half and just putting other half in wine bottles, when time comes.

 

[TheCADJockey]

Okay so I'm only now getting around to this unfortunately. Turns out getting married is a lot of work and money. So I picked up the rest of my supplies from LHBS last night: few boiling bags and some yeast.

There was a young man there that I had never seen before and with the appfelwein recipe being so simple I completely forgot the name of the yeast. The recipe calls for Montrachet Wine Yeast; the guy at the store gave me Lalvin EC-1118 Wine Yeast. Should I stop on the way home and get Montrachet or is the EC-1118 going to be okay? Never having had this before I've no expectations of what it should turn out like, just want something fruity for the wife to enjoy to help get her into the hobby a little.

Thanks in advance

 

[metanoia]

Okay so I'm only now getting around to this unfortunately. Turns out getting married is a lot of work and money.

Ugh, tell me about it.

Not sure about the wine yeast, but the description says "This Prisse de Mousse strain is fast-starting, clean and neutral," so it sounds like it'll work well. Plus who knows, maybe you'll be the first person to use this yeast and it could create some crazy delicious apfelwein!

 

[TheCADJockey]

Ah cool thanks man. His awkwardness just made me a little worried and the recipe he recited was simpler yet, involving only pitching yeast into the actual jug of apple juice while warning it's not great until 2-3 years. I'm not that excited for anything that I would have to wait that long to try.

 

[JimRausch]

I haven't used the EC-118 myself, but if you check down in the cider section of the forum, you'll see that it is a commonly used strain. I believe it tends to bring the cider well down to around 1.000- in other words, very dry.
Q- were you going to mix the two(cider and SMASH) together after fermentation for a Graf?

 

[TheCADJockey]

I haven't used the EC-118 myself, but if you check down in the cider section of the forum, you'll see that it is a commonly used strain. I believe it tends to bring the cider well down to around 1.000- in other words, very dry.
Q- were you going to mix the two(cider and SMASH) together after fermentation for a Graf?

I've never heard of a graf but it sounds interesting. I was just going to mix up a 5 gallon carboy of the appfelwein recipe while I made the SMaSH since it seemed so easy and would give me something to do while I watch the boil. I just read that cider thread too and I'm not sure it helped. I'll likely just use this EC yeast on the EdWort recipe and let it sit. I like dry, she likes sweet.

I just want a nice easy brew day and the smash sounded like a great way to try out my first crop of hops from the garden. Not to mention all the free DME I have laying around. Just trying to get my own processes down and into the groove so I can build a nice stash of homebrew. Just bleeding money buying local craft beers at the moment.

 

[JimRausch]

Graf, to Stephen King freaks, comes from a reference to a 'strong apple beer' in the Dark Tower series, book3 I think. Brandon O., down in the cider section is the guru of graf.
For me, it's a method to get a slightly sweet, carbonated cider product. It's.......different, but strangely good.
Edwort's appfelwein recipe is extremely popular, but to me just too dry. For about a year and a half after doing a batch, I added 1/2 tsp sugar to each glass when pouring. Then after that it mellowed out, more of the apple flavor came back, and it's very drinkable now(about 2 years post).
Good luck, and Brew On!