Bubbling away. There's another 20+ gallons not pictured. I picked up 400+ pounds of apples from my friend's apple tree in Lone Tree/River Junction/Stumptown, Iowa, and added another four 5-6 gallon batches to the ones listed above, and another three 3-gallon batches. I think I'm done for this fall. Now, the hardest part: the wait. I let two of the 3-gallon batches go spontaneous ferment (wild yeast) and those taste closest to the Normandy and English ciders I've sampled. I also have Safale S-04, Nottingham, Lavin L-1118, Wyeast 3068 (Weihenstephan Wheat) in some other batches. Most straight apple juice, although one five gallon batch had an extra 2 lbs light brown sugar, and another had 3 lbs honey.

I just put five gallons of juice and a pound of honey in a carboy with dry wine yeast. Got the airlock on and it's sitting in the basement.

I have a couple questions:

1) After it is done fermenting (SG of about 1.0) how do I use the rack and siphon. I get the siphon, but what is that cane for?

2) I am going to siphon it into the original glass containers (after sanitizing), but can I just leave those to clarify?

3) I have read that to get some carbonation you have to put in a little sugar before bottling. How much should I add so that I don't create a bomb?

4) Should I then age it bottled and carbonated or do age it before I put in the extra sugar?

I would appreciate any information from the experts. Thanks!

- Frenchstix

frenchstix wrote:I just put five gallons of juice and a pound of honey in a carboy with dry wine yeast. Got the airlock on and it's sitting in the basement.

I have a couple questions:

1) After it is done fermenting (SG of about 1.0) how do I use the rack and siphon. I get the siphon, but what is that cane for?

2) I am going to siphon it into the original glass containers (after sanitizing), but can I just leave those to clarify?

3) I have read that to get some carbonation you have to put in a little sugar before bottling. How much should I add so that I don't create a bomb?

4) Should I then age it bottled and carbonated or do age it before I put in the extra sugar?

I have five gallons of cider fermenting away in the basement. I'm not sure what you mean by rack and siphon, but basically stuff like that is used to move liquid from one place to another. I usually move the cider to a secondary (as you'd do with beer) after primary fermentation calms down. I let it clarify in the secondary. Then - rule of thumb - between 2/3 and 3/4 of a cup of corn sugar (dextrose) per five gallon batch should provide a nice carbonation level. If you use a different sugar, YMMV. After a few weeks, it should be drinkable, but it gets much better with a year or two of aging on it, after bottling - more age is especially beneficial for larger format bottlings (mine go into 12 oz. beer bottles for the most part).

If you go straight from the primary fermenter to bottles, you may be okay, but you'll probably get a relatively thick yeast cake on the bottom of the bottles, which could lead to autolysis, which generally isn't great for ciders, IMHO.

If you're using gallon bottles, I hope you have a good way to seal them to contain the carbonation. It might work, but I wouldn't count on a screw cap to keep all the CO2 inside.

Great info nr706 - I really appreciate it! I have learned a bit more in the last couple days and it seems like clearing in secondary and then adding some sugar before bottling is the way. It also appears that the gallon jugs might just have to be tossed. I guess I'll start saving up brown beer bottles and invest in a capper.

Another thing: I pushed down a little on the top of the bucket and some water leaked into the cider from the airlock - although it was just a little bit. Do you think that will adversely affect the brew? I guess it doesn't matter anyways since it's already going...

Thanks again!

frenchstix wrote:Great info nr706 - I really appreciate it! I have learned a bit more in the last couple days and it seems like clearing in secondary and then adding some sugar before bottling is the way. It also appears that the gallon jugs might just have to be tossed. I guess I'll start saving up brown beer bottles and invest in a capper.

If you're into sparkling wines, those 750 ml bottles are great for cider - just ask anyone who tried JimTheBeerGuy's cider at Sun Wah earlier this month. The only catch is that some use standard beer caps, others use European 29mm caps. This capper can accept an optional part to convert it from standard beer caps to the 29mm ones.
And the bottles don't have to be brown - that's to prevent light from changing compounds in hops to mercaptans, so with no hops, I wouldn't worry about bottle color too much.

frenchstix wrote:Another thing: I pushed down a little on the top of the bucket and some water leaked into the cider from the airlock - although it was just a little bit. Do you think that will adversely affect the brew? I guess it doesn't matter anyways since it's already going...

If it's water, I wouldn't worry about it, unless for some reason it looked cloudy. A lot of guys I know (including me) use a little cheap vodka instead of water in the airlock, so if a little gets sucked in, you'll be sure that nothing will be contaminated. If you used water with a little bleach in it - another common practice - you'll almost certainly get off flavors.

Thanks for the info nr706. Also, as I have never actually bottled anything before (we always just put it back in the jugs and drank it fast - and somewhat flat), do you leave a different amount of air depending on the size of the bottle? Seems like with a bigger container, you should leave more space? From a safety standpoint, this seems like important information.

Thanks!

I usually leave 3/4" - 1" headspace. Just take a look a bottle before opening and use that amount of headspace as a guide. To make filling easier, I invested $2.75 in a bottle filler. Attach some tubing (most hardware stores will have tubing labeled safe for potable water) and use the filler to siphon the cider into the bottle. Fill the bottle to the top, pull out the filler, and you have an ideal amount of headspace.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ethankeller/sunny-slope-makes-hard-cider-from-wisconsin-heirlo

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with this product. I learned about Ethan's kickstarter after I hired him to perform at a 50th anniversary party a couple weeks back. He brought some cider along for folks to taste. The history of the orchard, and the heirloom apples used, I believe, is unique. Ethan is a terrific performer, talented artist, and passionate partner in this cidery endeavor. Follow the link above to find out more. Thanks for listening!

Thank you very much for sharing a link to Sunny Slope!

I actually don't consider what I do as 'brewing.' Brewing usually involves boiling and/or cooking something. In cidermaking, nothing ever need reach those temperatures! I love to cook -- and also do that for our company -- but as a cidermaker I consider myself an amateur who just pays attention to basic biology, timing, and flavor. The trees and yeast do most of the work, so I often think of my role as a 'reluctant middleman.'

Here is the short link for our kickstarter -- which is only at 12% with only a few days left but you can read our cool story anyway. And there's a cool link to the Wisconsin Foodie Episode featuring the partnership, orchard, and New Glarus Brewing --> http://53em.qr.ai

Ethan Keller

Facebook.com/TheSunnySlope
@TheSunnySlope on Twitter

Food Nut wrote:https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/ethankeller/sunny-slope-makes-hard-cider-from-wisconsin-heirlo

Disclaimer: I have no affiliation with this product. I learned about Ethan's kickstarter after I hired him to perform at a 50th anniversary party a couple weeks back. He brought some cider along for folks to taste. The history of the orchard, and the heirloom apples used, I believe, is unique. Ethan is a terrific performer, talented artist, and passionate partner in this cidery endeavor. Follow the link above to find out more. Thanks for listening!