RiverSwillBeer
Well-Known Member
actually I didnt add any sugar ..... I wanted to experience it the "lite" way first
Check for Rhinoceri. If there are none, then you're right on track.
ok, to be honest. I wasn't impressed by my apfelwein at first. I thought I'd let it sit and hope that I'd develop a taste for it sooner or later, but then I let it carb for a while longer than the original month and it was ****ING AWESOME! It drinks like a beer with a tiny wine taste at the end and gets you passed out druck in like 4-5 glasses (16 oz).
I envy you....where I live I have been paying $4.99 a gallon. It's also $4.75 a gallon of gas.
Your yeast should be perfectly happy, given my vast experience of three batches. I'm using 71B yeast though, and it seems to just love to gobble up anything.
Isn't concentrate a cheaper way to go with Apfelwein? I noticed when I was buying my Welch's grape at $1.58 at Walmart that the apple concentrate was a mere $1.12 to make 46 oz at regular strength, I think. So a gallon would come in at under $4.
I'm going to use regular sugar next time, as well. How different could it be?
Do I pitch the new juice right onto the cake of yeast sitting in my carboy? That ought to get it off to a roaring start. Or do I clean, rinse and sanitize the carboy and bust out a fresh packet of Montrachet?
EDIT: Upon closer inspection, the yeast cake is lookin a little funky, and brown. Smells fine, but usually it's lily white. I usually don't leave it fermenting this long. Screw it, Montrachet yeast is cheap.
Do I pitch the new juice right onto the cake of yeast sitting in my carboy? Or do I clean, rinse and sanitize the carboy and bust out a fresh packet of Montrachet?
I hang with a wine makers forum or two, and I never even heard of using the yeast more then once till I started reading this forum.
Use the yeast once is wine making thinking.
Use the yeast more then once is beer making thinking.
Apfelwein is wine.
I would never reuse the yeast, especially when it costs so little.
I want consistancy.
The apple juice, I get from Walmart.
I get the juice and not the concentrate.
With the juice, I do not have to add water.
With concentrates, there are more solids present, and you have to add water.
Juice is pasturized, filtered, and ready to go .... no k-meta needed to kill nasties.
Then there is no, "Is tap water ok, should I buy distilled water, should I boil my water"?
I just dump it in as Ed says.
I make 6 gallon batches in my 6.25 gallon carboy.
6 gallons of juice fills it right to where it should be after adding dextrose, etc.
The juice at Walmart comes in 3-quart plastic containers at $2.50 each, that's $3.34 a gallon.
To start with 6 gallons of apple juice, I buy 8 containers which = $20.
I use 2.4 pounds dextrose for the 6 gallon batch, to stay true to Ed's formula.
my 2 cents
I am feeling the pain of living in Rural Colorado!
$3.99 for Regular No Lead
$4.59 Per Gallon for Kroger Apple Juice (Motts is over $6)
Target has Mots for $3.89 per gallon...but it's $70 worth of gas to get there.
BUMMER!
Ok granted im only 2 weeks along and a little but i just pulled a sample from my apfelwein started on 7-22 and it tastes like vinegar?....wtf ...am i just sampling too early ...
Its not done already, is it? I've seen many posts here with people waiting 12 weeks to bottle. 4 weeks seems to be the minimum. I have no problem waiting a few more weeks, its just strange that its not doing anything right now.
2.5 gal created 6/24/08.
Tasted a small sample at 4 weeks. I didn't give it the 3 glass rule, so I wasn't impressed.
That could be my problem right there... I don't particularly like wine.This is wine after all, don't expect a drinkable product that soon. Wine and mead take what, 6 months+ to really come to flavor? But I'd be lying if I said I didn't drink 10 gallons of green Apfelwein in the last 2 months
I plan to try it with some 7-up and also try maybe backsweetening it. If I can come up with something I like, I'll make some more then. I'm in no hurry, I have lots of beer on tap.
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