CIDER 101

[Ciderhead]

Work kids and other messing about didn't allow me to keg these before today, even though they were sitting in my shed chilling, all taste great apart from the champagne yeast far right which tbh they all need at least another 2 or 3 months minimum, amazing rounded flavour from 2 middle beer yeasts and cider yeast just tastes thin by comparison!

[johnrm]

Heres the Funk I had going on...

[johnrm]

In the pics above the skin is almost a wax, the round bits are like air bubbles, I'm guessing they are pockets of CO2 from the must.
I think this may be similar to mr_happys 'flakes' as this does break up if you move the fermenter.

20l batch, probably under-Campdened and under pitched this batch - Used Notty which had an accident.
Smell is slightly sulphur, but not off putting.

I syphoned off to a bottling bucket leaving trub and Funk behind.
I put 300ml into a 500ml Coke Bottle, added 100ml Apple juice and have force carbonated it.
A quick taste test and it seems acceptable.

I have the same white skin on a much smaller locally sourced batch in which I used Lager Yeast.

[JD]

This looks like the early stages of a film yeast (you say it breaks up if you move the fermenter. If it sank as a single unit it would suggest acetobacter infection). See http://www.cider.org.uk/part5.htm for remedial action.
/JD

[Greg2013]

Some 45 litres of cider into my two new carboys which arrive today courtesy of Geterbrewed, smells fantastic.

[mr hoppy]

Yep, I'd say that's a film yeast. Is it in a carboy yet?

I had a second (of 3) batch go down with this. It seems, on account of no hops or boil, any oxygen near cider = infection. The old school book I have recommends storing in a carboy and topping up right up with water. I went with the "modern" approach of flushing the carboy with CO2and carefully racking my 3 - 4gls of cider from between the film and the trub onto 4 crushed campden tablets. Hopefully the sulphur will kill the thrush and the C02 will mean there's no oxygen.

I'd no idea how wussy apple juice was with infections compared to a hopped, boiled beer. Next year - lots of C02 and glass all the way.

[mr hoppy]

Bacterial infection.

It will taste fine now, but over time it will deteriorate. You might be able to pasteurise it out of it.

When you say over time it'll deteriorate, is that even if you stick it in glass, nuke it with campden tablets and drown it with  CO2?

[mr hoppy]

Cool, I thought I'd ask as I don't really know what I'm doing either!

[mr hoppy]

Heres the Funk I had going on...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHZswzk0424

[Bogwoppit]

It's taken a little while but the second of my 2 carboys started to ferment at full speed a few days ago.

I was contemplating mixing some of the juice between the 2 carboys as the first one started a few weeks ago and is still going strong.

Both had the same treatment of campden tablets so there is obviously some difference in yeasts populating the 2, it will be interesting to see if there is a difference in flavour.

They are due to be racked this week to take of the yellow crud that forms on the top. After that they won't be touched until August.

Bw

[Will_D]

A bit of an update:

Fermenting outdoors with no temperature controll!

Racked off my two batches yesterday:

Chardonay Yeast and Nutrients: 1.007 Not bone dry, drinkable already, no sulphur

WLP-830 Lager yeast and Nutrient: 1.005 A little drier than above, drinkable already, no sulphur

There was a slight colour difference between them. Will wait a bit longer before taking a photo.

Filled up two 30 L fermenters to the top and combined the rest to settle in a 20 l fermenter.

They are still outside and will stay there another 6 weeks or so.

BTW: The pure juice sample I had took AGES to start - about 3 week of December!

[Bogwoppit]

Just another update on the natural fermentation to show that it does work.

It's being stored in the wooden shed in the garden so is at around 7 degrees at the moment.

A very healthy amount of gas being produced!

[Garry]

Just checked the gravity of my cider, it's down to 1.004. But I forgot to record the original gravity! I'm sure someone posted it here but I can't find it 

[mr hoppy]

Think it was 1052?

[Ciderhead]

Will posted 1051, in the first post.
It will go more that 1004 if you let it