I was hoping that was the answer, I prefer to keep it simple. I was hoping to let it sit until I put in the keg. Do you think a month in the fermenter will be enough ?
You used 05, right? Yeah, a month should do it. Just checking my notes, I used 05 last year for my cider, racked it to secondary after about 3 weeks. Went from 1.051 to 1.001 in that amount of time for 98%AA. Iām sure itāll be fine, and should drop nice and clear in the keg.
Well itās still sitting in the primary and Iām thinking next week to keg. Probably leave it n the keg to secondary for another week or two. Has anyone tried tossing in fresh apples to sweeten it. Maybe hang some sliced apples in a bag in the keg.
I wouldnāt use whole fruit. Easier and less waste just to juice them, if you want to do something like that.
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. Iāll take another reading in a couple days. There is no airlock pressure and itās 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 donāt 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 itās 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 wouldnāt put the new juice on the whole cake. Just reserve like a half cup of it and dump the rest. Donāt worry about the pectinase or sorbate. Sorbate is especially unnecessary if youāre 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 didnāt 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 itās 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 wouldnāt 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 wouldnāt be surprised if there was still potential for more fermentation.
Did the cider start to clear on itās own, or was there still a lot of yeast in suspension?
It was pretty clear by itself.I let it go overnight , Iāll check SG today and drop the gelatin then let it sit overnight. Iāll 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. Didnāt really look much different, but it was already fairly clear.
Iāve never added gelatin to cider; itās 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 Iām 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 Iām 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 doesnāt have the tartness of the cider. I never had a graff before so I didnāt 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. Itās not off putting , at least to us, but itās there. I figure it will age out. I used a lager yeast but didnāt lager the cider before trying it. Do you think that would help the sulfur smell?
