legless but smiling hopefully

[whiskyagoogotom]

Greetings and salutations

Just pressed about 20 gallon of apple juice yesterday for the first time ever on a lovely sunny day in Jersey C.I and hopefully on the way to make some classic home brew.

Unfortunately when i had all the juice contained and ready to ferment i added wine yeast straight away without killing off the wild yeasts first.

should i have added those Camden tablets to kill off and nasty wee bugs first?
Or by me adding the wine yeast be ok as long as they kill of the wild yeast?

Should i just kill of all the yeast that i put in, with the tablets and start afresh?

I'm totally confused now the book on cider making just told me to put the yeast in straight away once i vatted the juice.

Any help to put me in the correct direction would be most welcome

Thanks

Tom

 

[oldmate]

The wine yeast should easily be able to overpower/outcompete the wild yeasts, I wouldn't worry about it.

 

[camatt2989]

your good...if you let it sit and naturally ferment for days and days they u may have a problem

 

[Fletch78]

The yeast cell count on the wildebeasts will be in the tens of millions. The yeast cell count in your wine yeast is in the hundreds of billions, per pack. They'll outcompete with no problem. Also, the low ph and alcohol content of cider will neutralize most other wild bacteria that was present. Although your cider has a 99% chance of coming out fine, you have left the door 1% open for bad things. Acetobacter which makes vinegar is the only thing that comes to mind that you should be concerned about. And even if you get this, my understanding is that it's only a problem when aging... if you get acetobacter just drink it young or pasteurize it.

 

[whiskyagoogotom]

Thanks Guys

Regarding the Bacteria after fermentation i think ill pasteurise the cider as my sensitive stomach tends to be prone to the old gut rot with wild ciders.

Fermentation seems to be working as i can here it bubbling away that's been 3 days since pressed and the kitchen smells of a brewery lol.

I dont seem to have much foam/gunk on the top of the juice though?

fingers crossed all is working would be a shame to throw away 20 gallons of possible home grown cider.

Laters

Tom

 

[whiskyagoogotom]

Hi All

I dont know if i have a problem or not, Its been 6 days now since the apple juice was put into the 5 gallon fermenting vessels it has been bubbling away nicely for about 4 days of them and the room has been smelling of a brewery.

But just last night everything stopped no smell no bubbling so i i got the hydrometer out and it read 1000 ready to be bottled.

How can this be in just 6 days? what's gone wrong?

The colour is a pale yellow can almost see threw it just a little and tastes kinda tart.

It has been kept in a room at 21 degrees constant.

Can anyone please shed any light to this? should i start to rack the cider today? Or have i goosed things up.

Thanks

Tom

 

[oldmate]

Sounds fine to me.

 

[RukusDM]

Hi All

I dont know if i have a problem or not, Its been 6 days now since the apple juice was put into the 5 gallon fermenting vessels it has been bubbling away nicely for about 4 days of them and the room has been smelling of a brewery.

But just last night everything stopped no smell no bubbling so i i got the hydrometer out and it read 1000 ready to be bottled.

How can this be in just 6 days? what's gone wrong?

The colour is a pale yellow can almost see threw it just a little and tastes kinda tart.

It has been kept in a room at 21 degrees constant.

Can anyone please shed any light to this? should i start to rack the cider today? Or have i goosed things up.

Thanks

Tom

Tom, I have been doing allot of testing myself to understand all of this. I had a couple of 3L test bottles running with Safale s-04 yeast and they finished in about 5 days each, but at a bit higher SG as I didn't want it to go Dry.

With the Safale, my experience is that I was dropping the SG 0.01 per day till nearing the end and it tapered down from there.

I had also used a Champagne yeast on another batch and that SG dropped really rapidly in a week and had dropped to 0.991 from a initial SG of 1.12 in 10 days.

I have my data plotted on Excel with Charts. I wish I could find a way to post it.

I don't think that finishing up in that short a time is a problem from what I've experienced. However, you had fermented at a higher temperature than I did, so that may explain why it finished a bit sooner than mine. It must have been a fairly aggressive ferment

 

[JLem]

also...it may not be done - it can go lower than 1.000. Don't rush to bottle it. Leave it be for a while - if it were beer, I'd say at least 2-3 weeks. For cider, I'm not 100% sure, but maybe longer.

 

[whiskyagoogotom]

OK thanks for that, that kinda sheds some light.

So should i go ahead and rack it i was thinking of adding some sugar for a sweeter taste and then leaving for a few weeks, then racking again before bottling.

Think thats a good idea?

Cheers all
Tom

 

[roadymi]

If you add sugar w/o sulphiting your yeast they will just convert your added sugar into more alochol.

 

[oldmate]

Read up on the bottle pasteurisation thread that's stickied at the top of the forum if you're looking for a sweet cider!