sfbayjay
Active Member
Hi all! After brewing a number of successful beers over the last year, I'm in the middle of fermenting my first hard cider.
I started with 4 gallons of Mott's "Natural" apple juice (100% juice, pasteurized, unfiltered, no preservatives, no vitamin C added). OG of juice = 1.051.
Pitched Safale S-04 into well-aerated juice (vigorously shook juice bottles after partially pouring into fermenter, resulting in a nice foamy environment). Rehydrated S-04 per Fermentis' instructions and pitched.
Fermenting now for 11 days at about 65 degrees (water bath with frozen water bottles).
Recipe for SWMBO raspberry cider says to rack to secondary at 10 days and add 2 lbs raspberries to secondary after a 10 min soak in near-boiling water to sanitize the berries.
Here's the thing: Took a gravity reading just now and I'm at 1.017. I'm planning to bottle this stuff and I suspected it would get down to around 1.000 or even a little lower based on everything I've read here.
I still have a LITTLE bit of airlock activity on the primary now, but not much.
So: should I rack to secondary now and add raspberries, or wait and see if the gravity continues to drop. I'm getting ready to leave on vacation tomorrow for 10 days. So either it's rack onto the berries tonight or wait 'till I get back.
Any suggestions much appreciated as I'm a total cider nOOb!
I started with 4 gallons of Mott's "Natural" apple juice (100% juice, pasteurized, unfiltered, no preservatives, no vitamin C added). OG of juice = 1.051.
Pitched Safale S-04 into well-aerated juice (vigorously shook juice bottles after partially pouring into fermenter, resulting in a nice foamy environment). Rehydrated S-04 per Fermentis' instructions and pitched.
Fermenting now for 11 days at about 65 degrees (water bath with frozen water bottles).
Recipe for SWMBO raspberry cider says to rack to secondary at 10 days and add 2 lbs raspberries to secondary after a 10 min soak in near-boiling water to sanitize the berries.
Here's the thing: Took a gravity reading just now and I'm at 1.017. I'm planning to bottle this stuff and I suspected it would get down to around 1.000 or even a little lower based on everything I've read here.
I still have a LITTLE bit of airlock activity on the primary now, but not much.
So: should I rack to secondary now and add raspberries, or wait and see if the gravity continues to drop. I'm getting ready to leave on vacation tomorrow for 10 days. So either it's rack onto the berries tonight or wait 'till I get back.
Any suggestions much appreciated as I'm a total cider nOOb!