I’ve finally decided to try out home brewing apple cider. (The alcohol containing kind.)
Yesterday at the farmers market, I bought 1 gallon of Apple Cider – unpasteurized and no preservatives added – from Cherry Orchards in Crooksville, Ohio.
After the market, I went to the Athens Do It Yourself Shop – a home brewing shop in Athens – and bought a 1-gallon Vinter’s Best winemaking kit.
Once I got home from the market, I tore into the kit and found the recipes and started in on the process. Around 3pm or so I poured the 1-gallon of cider into the primary fermentation bucket and added the crushed Campden tablet to the mix.
Today, around noon, I added 1/2 a package of yeast to 1/2 cup of lukewarm water and added it to the fermenter. I’m excited at this point, because now is when things start to happen! I’ve got the lid on tight, and the airlock installed.
I just used the yeast that came with the kit. It’s a Red Star Montrachet “Active Dry Wine Yeast.” I’ve heard and read that champagne yeast is the best to use for cider making, but I just wanted to use what I already had.
Home brewing is something I’ve been wanting to do for quite a while! Especially after I went to the store the other day to buy some beer and everything was so damn expensive. I’ll probably do some cider for now, maybe try some wines but I definitely want to try out some beer soon too.
I am going to try to post updates as things happen!
Nice lighting, shadows, setting, and background for these pics. Glad to see the photography minor is going towards the documentation of you getting home brewed drunk
Thanks, James. The light was just right on the clothes dryer by a window. But I had to wait until a cloud came by to get some nice diffused lighting.
Update – 24 hours later : Not much is going on in the fermenter. The airlock is lifting slowly, a hint that something is starting to happen in there. So far my observation is way to much way to often. I’m kinda feeling like a watched pot never boils kinda thing. I wanna see it start fermenting like crazy!
Update – 60 hours later : The airlock in the fermenter is steadily releasing bubbles of CO2. Taking a peek in side it’s smelling a little fermenty and looks a bit bubbly! It’s cool something is happening.
Update – 72+ hours later : I went back to the brew shop and picked up a few other items yesterday. The cider making instructions had said to rack (a fancy word for transfer, really) the cider into a secondary fermenter (glass carboy) when the specific gravity reached 1.040. It also said 3-5 days. Well … it was 4 days. So I racked it.
With the hydrometer that I bought, I could not test the SG with the hydrometer until it was in the carboy. (I need to buy a 12 – 14″ tall test jar). After it was all racked, using the fancy auto-siphon that came with the kit, the hydrometer reading showed the SG was exactly 1.040!
I took a little taste, and so far it’s tasting good. According to the chart with the hydrometer, at SG of 1.040 there is 5.3% of potential alcohol content. Apparently it will remain in the carboy for another three weeks, when the SG should reach 1.000 and fermenting will be complete.
Stay tuned! I’ll probably start another full post after this update since the next stage will take quite a while. And, since my primary fermenter is free now, I will probably start something else. Maybe some Concord Grape wine since I can get them locally. Or maybe some pear cider. Or maybe just another batch of apple. I did pick up a few items at the brew shop I didn’t add to the first batch: pectic enzyme, energizer and champagne yeast. I also didn’t add the sugar it called for too … So the next batch could end up quite different than the first. It’s fun experimenting!
Three weeks and four days since I started the cider : I racked the cider today into a clean carboy and, of course, tasted some along the way. I can say with a smile that it is tasting GOOD! It is soo good. It’s a “still” cider right now. I want to carbonate some of it. When I bottle it, I just need to mix in 1/4 cup of sugar in the gallon of cider and bottle it. The residual yeast in the cider will naturally carbonate the cider in the bottle. I can’t wait to try that! I may leave some of it “still” though.
Since starting this batch of cider, I started some concord grape wine, and another gallon of cider. For the second batch of cider, which I’m calling “Joe’s Birthday Cider” because I started it on my brother’s birthday, I followed a different recipe more closely this time. The alcohol content should be higher in this next batch. I’m sure I’ll post about it, too.