Well, my backyard Winesaps apples are ready for my first from scratch home brew! I picked 115lbs of apples and we are grinding and pressing them this weekend! I plan on washing the apples in a soda ash rinse before grinding, and then using sodium metabisulfate/campden tablets for 24h in the pressed juice to kill any bacteria and wild yeast before adding yeast and fermenting. I have 4 lbs of corn sugar ready for priming, do you think that will be enough? Or too much? Going for off-dry, not too sweet, and fizzy!
Anyone experienced with this?
Thanks everyone for your help!
Well, Welcome! Ah… making cider…
Now I did this a few years ago… (cider press topic)… It was alot of work… and doing it by myself, one wheel barrow load of apples yielded 5 gallons…
I just rinsed the apples before hand… nothing else. AND I don’t spray my trees fer bugs…
Campden tab’s at one per gallon…
Yeast… Some stop just above 1.001… and a another got me just below 1.000 (.997)…
The higher one, was medium… the lower one once carbonated, was dry like champagne… which is how I prefer mine… and well carbonated…
Just dumping in sugar and bottling (?) isn’t a good practice… Its the “too much” side that has potential to cause bottle bombs… There are “carbonation calculators” online… Even our host has one… you’ll need to look around and do read them a couple of times…
I keg. Set my pressure at 15 PSI’s…
There are a few cider folks on here… Should you have more questions on yer journey… Remember… This IS alot of fun, and this is a good change from beer! I’ve not tried to use hops in any… yet…
Sneezles61
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Im not sure about the weight per gallon but ive found a 5 gallon of bucket of apples yields about 1 gallon of juice. I just dump them in water then quarter them, after they are crushed and pressed i heat pasteurize. I have used the camden but prefer pasteurizing. Then i can or kids can drink the sweet juice. I also don’t like adding anything to my cider or wine before or after fermentation. Its not needed
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