First Cider

[SAMPLER]

Going to make my first cider tomorrow.

I have a homemade Press, homemade scratter machine and appx. 3 bushels of apples.

I picked up two packets of yeast today. (1) Safale s-04 yeast and the other is a Red Star Pasteur champange yeast.

I'm planning on fermenting in (2) 5 gallon glass carboys.

Considering splitting each carboy out into 1 gallon glass jugs to experiment with. Unsure of my steps from here.

Overall, would like some in put from the board and direction to make this first time process a smooth and successful one.

Thank you... Cheers

Pictures to come.

 

[SAMPLER]

Here is a scratter.... homemade.







Cheers

 

[SAMPLER]

Here is my Cider press... homemade.







Cheers

 

[MarkKF]

I used the Red Star two years ago and am trying SA-04 this year. The one gal. test batch never worked for me. With 5 gal. I can pass it around and get lots of opinions. I'd only use one gal. if trying something that might not work or be horrible.


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[Richelle]

Seems like you enjoy preping up for making cider as much as you enjoy making it.
That is a very beautiful project!!!

 

[Max_Chavez]

Beautiful stuff.

I really enjoyed all three versions of a split batch that I did. We just bottled this week, but tasted great at bottling.
My favorite was the 100ish percent brett batch. Cultured from 2 bottles of crooked stave in 1 qt of cider for a week. (Plus any natural yeasts on the crab apples)
Search for the 'Spanish cider and brett' thread for more details

One other note. A buddy did a batch the same week I did and I found that I preferred mine(no sugar) to his(1lb sugar)

Cheers