Ideas for my next cider

[justineaton]

24 hours after adding nutrient and still no bubbles so I am re pitching yeast now it is a little cooler in basement than I would like but the pumpkin cider is doing great so that shouldn't be an issue

 

[NateG]

So the cider got moved out of the closet earlier this week because we were having some repairs done and it went into the cool garage. Yesterday I used a packet of wine clarifying liquid, the two part kind and now it is clear as can be I will be transferring it to a keg later today.

 

[justineaton]

Well my pumpkin cider is still bubbling and I am worried I put to much sugar in it, I like higher abv brews but not wine level. I am going to take a gravity reading tomorrow but if it is in the level I want I'm not sure how to stop it, should I cold crash, stovetop pasturize, add crushed Camden tablets? If it is already to high I will just give it another 6 months in secondary racking it every two months then bottle it, age it for a year, and call it pumpkin Apple wine but that's really not what I want.

 

[TexasWine]

Well my pumpkin cider is still bubbling and I am worried I put to much sugar in it, I like higher abv brews but not wine level. I am going to take a gravity reading tomorrow but if it is in the level I want I'm not sure how to stop it, should I cold crash, stovetop pasturize, add crushed Camden tablets? If it is already to high I will just give it another 6 months in secondary racking it every two months then bottle it, age it for a year, and call it pumpkin Apple wine but that's really not what I want.

Cold crashing works for most folks. Just remember if it warms back up fermentation will likely restart.

If you like the way it tastes now then yes, bottling then stove top pasteurizing could be an option. If it has enough sugar left to chew through you could even carb it up before pasteurizing. Just be careful because it will likely carb up very quickly.

I've also heard of other folks pasteurizing in their keg at around 160F. If you've got the means to do that it'd be a lot less manual labor.

 

[justineaton]

It ended up being about perfect, 8.3 %abv right now with just enough left that it should carb up just right. One thing that surprised me is how clear this is, while racking it, it was hard to tell if anything was moving through the hose. I bottled half in Brown 12oz bottles and the other half in clear one litter ez cap bottles and in the clear ez cap bottles it is a very slight orange color. Right away it is easily the tastiest cider I have made yet and I expect it to get better after bottle conditioning and carbonating. I lost about a gallon in the bottom with pumpkin sludge but the final product was worth it though.

 

[justineaton]

 

[justineaton]

It's a little over three months later and I just cracked one of these open for the first time in about two months. Unfortunately I drank or gave all but 6 bottles away in the first month because this is a million times better than the last one I had a couple months ago.

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[justineaton]

I will definitely do this again this year and this time I won't touch it for three months minimum

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