It is unseasonably warm today, a toasty 17°C. My “clarifying” cider has started to ferment again.
It is slowly clearing though, but the pile of gunk at the bottom (the must?) is pretty thick. I guess it will settle over time.
It is unseasonably warm today, a toasty 17°C. My “clarifying” cider has started to ferment again.
It is slowly clearing though, but the pile of gunk at the bottom (the must?) is pretty thick. I guess it will settle over time.
I am exploring this cheaty way of making fizzy cider using Pat Mack’s Home Brewing Caps (I just love the sound of that and hope that it is really his or her name). You mix the ingredients in the picture and add a pinch of yeast. In this case I had the dregs of the last batch in the bottom of the bottle so just mixed it all together and left it in a warm part of the house.
My hope is to make a light cider that I can share with the kids without feeling guilty. A strong memory of mine is my grandfather (who didn’t drink) serving cider with meals because it had been bought by my grandmother and was “non-alcoholic”.
The cider continues to clear. I love the colour. I was concerned about the dryness so posted in The Homebrew Forum. The suggestions almost immediately were:
Patience eh?!
So, I racked the cider off about three hours ago and put it in the garage. It is not a cold day (17 degrees outside) but this is already the result as it starts to settle. It is a beautiful colour.
As usual I shot from the hip with the cider I’m making (I really need to learn). I only had access to rather acidic bramleys and initially just shoved in a campden tablet and waited. Nothing at all happened so when I went to my lovely brewing shop they suggested whacking in some cider yeast. They also kindly gave me their printed cider instructions.
The gravity of my apple juice was very low, so I stuck some soft brown sugar in (on a whim) to bring it up to 1050. The fermentation followed the typical not-very-much to insane-frothing (see video below). My recipe said leave it for four days, check it and make sure that it does not go below a gravity of 1005. I measured it after 3.5 days and the gravity was 1004. Oops. It is already pretty dry with quite a kick, and still bubbling away merrily. After a little research I figured that it was too warm (should have done it in the cellar?) and maybe I should not have added the sugar.
The dreadful smell of new born nappies was not encouraging, nor was the colour of the yeast froth that matched the colour of those delightful little packages from early fatherhood.
What to do? Well, I have racked it off carefully and am putting it in a cold place. Not sure what to do after that.