{"id":29,"date":"2011-10-17T02:08:40","date_gmt":"2011-10-17T02:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thebottlefarm.com\/blog\/files\/8e1ef327bca5fdf31788bcb96e7d5d8b-10.php#unique-entry-id-10"},"modified":"2013-09-20T02:27:27","modified_gmt":"2013-09-20T02:27:27","slug":"fermenting-hard-cider","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/fermenting-hard-cider\/","title":{"rendered":"Fermenting Hard Cider"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few firsts. My first Cider fermenting. My first time reusing yeast. Hoping for the best on both accounts.
\nThis is yet another long over due goal. I\u2019ve wanted to make hard cider for a long time. Living where we do within a short drive to numerous orchards of every shape and size the fall smell of fallen apples is amazing. After some brief reading of how to make cider online, I figured it was easy enough to do, that I had to give it a go.
\n<\/span>\"IMG_4831\"
\n<\/span>Recipe:
\n3 Gallons unpasteurized cider
\n2 cups turbinato sugar
\n1\/8 tb peptic enzyme
\n1 campden tablet
\nYeast nutrient
\n600ml yeast \/ starter<\/span><\/p>\n

Mix cider w\/ sugar, enzyme, and camden. Wait 24 hrs.
\nPrepare your yeast starter*.
\nAdd yeast to cider, and ferment at 70ish for 2-3 weeks. Rack off lees, cold crash, serve. Enjoy.
\n\"IMG_7759\"
\n<\/span>If only it were that simple. So, what really happened? As I was fermenting the cider, I\u2019d yet to really establish proper fermentation control, so it pogo\u2019d as the crazy fall weather went from 65 to 35 and back. It went through a phase where it seemed very dmsy, or even sulfery. When it came time to stop the fermentation. Because of a bit of a mix up with my temperature controller, I didn\u2019t have any means to actually cold crash the cider, or stop fermentation when there was still some natural sugar left. I figured it would be ok to just let roll. I was wrong. I did decide to carb it at low pressure (5psi at 40*) to see how it tasted subtly carbonated. It turned very dry, and w\/out any sweetness. I decided to take a bold step and back sweeten w\/ 1\/2 can of grape concentrate, and to recarb. While it recarbed just fine, the cider isn\u2019t very good. Described as \u2018earthy\u2019 and winey by the the brave souls I shared it with. <\/span><\/p>\n

Plan for next time? I\u2019m sure there are recipe tweaks I could do, but I think it comes down to two things. I need to be less hesitant to stop fermentation. Even if that means heat pasteurizing. Anything to keep that zing and sugar of a cider. Also, I\u2019m going to do more research, perhaps try to pick the brain of Steve Woods of Farnum hill to get a better understating where my process has failed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few firsts. My first Cider fermenting. My first time reusing yeast….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[6,11],"class_list":["post-29","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-projects-and-thoughts","tag-brew-log","tag-cider"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thebottlefarm.com\/wpbottle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}