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My brewing contribution
Apr. 13th, 2010 09:04 pmEdit: The background:
On the weekend a bunch of people collected at a house near Trentham. We crushed about 1000kg of apples and got about 250L of juice. We need to do some work to increase the yield. This brewing story is about the 20L of juice I got to experiment with.
Brew experiment 1
The elderberry juice (1L) has been added to the apple juice (14L) and an enormous amount fo froth has been wiped from the outside of the demijohn and my laundry floor. The EC1118 (champagne yeast) was pitched this morning and tonight the foam is escaping out of the airlock. It's a lovely colour.
Brew experiment 2
There's about 6L of juice left and its started its natural fermentation. Tonight I added 500g of malt and half a packet of ale yeast (Safale 05). I plan to rack it before the fermentation is completed and then leave it for a longer time. Hopefully, I'll get a sweeter cider that doesn't explode bottles. I don't have a suitable container for my hydrometer so I used this site to estimate the likely alcohol content. Previous apple juices had an sg of 1040, so I estimated the equivalent sugar content and then worked out the alcohol level when I added the malt. It's about 8.5%, although the juice I tasted tonight wasn't as sweet as commercial apple juice and the racking will leave behind some sugar. Maybe the final alcohol content will be closer to 8%.
There's talk of more juice production on the weekend. Maybe we should use some ale yeasts and some natural fermentation in that juice.
I may need to invest in more fermenters, or else just silicon bungs and airlocks for my carboys.
On the weekend a bunch of people collected at a house near Trentham. We crushed about 1000kg of apples and got about 250L of juice. We need to do some work to increase the yield. This brewing story is about the 20L of juice I got to experiment with.
Brew experiment 1
The elderberry juice (1L) has been added to the apple juice (14L) and an enormous amount fo froth has been wiped from the outside of the demijohn and my laundry floor. The EC1118 (champagne yeast) was pitched this morning and tonight the foam is escaping out of the airlock. It's a lovely colour.
Brew experiment 2
There's about 6L of juice left and its started its natural fermentation. Tonight I added 500g of malt and half a packet of ale yeast (Safale 05). I plan to rack it before the fermentation is completed and then leave it for a longer time. Hopefully, I'll get a sweeter cider that doesn't explode bottles. I don't have a suitable container for my hydrometer so I used this site to estimate the likely alcohol content. Previous apple juices had an sg of 1040, so I estimated the equivalent sugar content and then worked out the alcohol level when I added the malt. It's about 8.5%, although the juice I tasted tonight wasn't as sweet as commercial apple juice and the racking will leave behind some sugar. Maybe the final alcohol content will be closer to 8%.
There's talk of more juice production on the weekend. Maybe we should use some ale yeasts and some natural fermentation in that juice.
I may need to invest in more fermenters, or else just silicon bungs and airlocks for my carboys.
