Took a gravity reading .004. Tastes good right were it is. Maybe I should keg it now as is.
Is the fermentation complete? If yes, no reason to wait. It will clear in the keg just as well as it will in the primary.
If fermentation is not complete, you could treat it with campden and sorbate to stabilize it to arrest the fermentation. Or you could just refrigerate it and hope it stops.
Not sure if it complete. I’ll take another reading in a couple days. There is no airlock pressure and it’s already fairly clear so it may have. I plan on cold crashing and then gelatin. Hopefully it will get crystal clear. I never did get any pectonase and I don’t have any potassium sorbate. Going to press some more apples this weekend do you think I should pitch it on top of the cake? I was going to add the gelatin to the fermenter after crashing, will that effect the slurry?
I bet it’s still fermenting and needs more time, maybe another week or two at least, if not three. Reusing your yeast for a new batch I think is a good idea. Gelatin will clear the cider. Having the gelatin in your yeast slurry for the next batch is no big deal. However I wouldn’t put the new juice on the whole cake. Just reserve like a half cup of it and dump the rest. Don’t worry about the pectinase or sorbate. Sorbate is especially unnecessary if you’re kegging.
Ok. I put the bucket in the refer at 40 deg to cold crash before I put in the gelatin in, that was Friday. Now Sunday night I took it out anticipating adding the gelatin and behold vigorous airlock activity. I didn’t expect that from us05 at 40 deg. What gives?
It might just be dissolved CO2 coming out of solution due to moving it around. Or it’s totally possible that fermentation is still happening. Maybe a bit of both?
Did you have a storm come through the area? A low pressure front can kick off airlock activity. I wouldn’t have expected US-05 to keep fermenting at 40 either, but 1.004 can still be on the high side for cider FG, so I wouldn’t be surprised if there was still potential for more fermentation.
Did the cider start to clear on it’s own, or was there still a lot of yeast in suspension?
It was pretty clear by itself.I let it go overnight , I’ll check SG today and drop the gelatin then let it sit overnight. I’ll keg it tomorrow.
No storm, but taking it from a cold fridge to a warm room it acted like one. I post faster than I think. :oops:
Added gelatin and keged after 24 hrs. Didn’t really look much different, but it was already fairly clear.
I’ve never added gelatin to cider; it’s always crystal clear on its own if given at least a couple months.
Nothing lasts here a couple months. I rushed it along hoping to have it ready when I get back from my trip to CO
The first batch came out pretty good so now I’m going to try a graff. I will use 2 1/2 gallons of cider with 3/4 gallons of saved third running wort that I froze for starters. Trying to figure out how to get to 7% ABV. I havnt taken any gravity readings yet but I think the cider will be about .05 and the wort is .04 so I will need to add some DME. The juice is sitting with Camden now. Oh and I’m going to use a lager yeast. Any suggestions?
Before pitching the yeast, splash the cider around some to make sure that campden binds with oxygen, which will effectively deactivate it. I suspect lager yeast, like most beer yeasts, have low resistance to sulfites.
Well I pulled the first pint of the graff an truth be told I much prefer the straight up cider. The graff is fine enough but doesn’t have the tartness of the cider. I never had a graff before so I didn’t know what to expect. Next years apples will be used for a large batch of cider now that I know what I prefer.
I was sharing the graff with a friend and he said it had a sulfur you smell and I have to agree. It’s not off putting , at least to us, but it’s there. I figure it will age out. I used a lager yeast but didn’t lager the cider before trying it. Do you think that would help the sulfur smell?
The sulfur will disappear with age. Just give it a month or two. Or, just pour a pint 10 minutes before you drink it and some of that will gas off in the glass before you gulp any.
What I did Dave is release the gas from the keg and it cleared it a bit. Do you think it will build up again? Im thinking if I blow it off a couple times.
If it continues to build up a lot, it means the yeast is still alive. You can knock them out with gelatin, sorbate, and sulfite, if you want it to end quicker. Are you sure fermentation was done before kegging? EDIT: Looks like maybe that answer is no. Sorbate will severely injure the yeast. I see you already added gelatin and Campden. Now try sorbate. Maybe that’s the kick the yeast really needs to knock it out. Otherwise them buggers want to keep on causing trouble for you, since you might have kegged just a few days too soon.
I’ll tell you I kind of put the graff aside and moved on to other stuff but revisited the it this weekend. The sulfur had cleared and the liquid itself was Chrystal clear. Didn’t use gelatin just lagered. It was very good I think I’ll make another.
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