Greetings from MS gulf coast.

[Darthbrewder]

Hello all, I finally decided to join up since I have been stalking these forums for the past few weeks. I have so far read a lot of really good info and look forward to the support this community offers.

I am not completely unfamiliar with brewing but I am at best a novice. I got into brewing ~3 years ago. Started with a mr. Beer kit. Brewed a few batches and stopped because life.
About a month ago I read about brewing my own cider at home using bread yeast and apple juice. So I decided to give it a shot. That pretty much got me started again. While the cider came out less than great, it wasn't completely awful. It made me realize that I needed to brew and that I wanted to learn more and more about brewing.

Thanks in advance for all your help and feedback. Looking forward to brewing some great , um, brew! Cheers!

 

[beernutz]

Hi and welcome to HBT from another gulf coast resident. I have been to quite a few MS cities on the coast with the colorful names Biloxi, Ocean Springs, Gulfport, Waveland, Pass Christian, Bay St Louis, Gautier and Pascagoula, but I confess I've yet to make it to Picayune.

I would definitely skip the bread yeast for your next cider batch.
I've had good results using dry yeast like Saflager S-23 or W34/70, Nottingham ale, or Montrachet wine yeast by Red Star to make cider though the lager ones, the first two I listed, take a while to get started and finished in my experience, even when using a starter so patience is a virtue. Actually any good cider requires patience as one of its key ingredients imo.

You might want to give Ed Wort's Apfelwein recipe a try: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/man-i-love-apfelwein-14860/
I've made it twice, the first time using the exact recipe and the second where I tweaked it by adding "Christmas" spices like cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and both times it came out delicious. My wife is on me all the time to make sure we never run out which is hard to do as it is very hard to resist.

Good brewing and cidermaking!