Hard Cider Making 2011
I bought the farm fresh cider on Thursday and I was able to put it all together on Friday.
I added the 2 pounds of sugar and the 4 gallons of apple cider together and met my target gravity of somewhere between 1.060 and 1.065.
I heated the mixture to 150°F for 20 minutes and then I put the lid on my pot and let it cool in a water bath. I didn’t use my immersion chiller. I didn’t want to fuss with it for the cider.
While it was cooling, I proofed the two packets of Nottingham yeast in water I boiled and let cool to 85°F.
After stirring with a sanitized spoon, it foamed up in 15 minutes.
I added my yeast nutrient and energizer, then I racked it to a glass carboy. For 30 minutes, I aerated it with the ol’ aquarium pump and stone.
I took some snapshots to document this year’s hard cider making:
on October 24th, 2011 at 9:53 am
Nice! Looking to make some myself, haven’t tried it yet.
Hope it turns out well!
on October 25th, 2011 at 2:28 pm
Really curious to see how it turns out!
on October 26th, 2011 at 8:59 am
Yes, I am hoping it turns out well myself. The airlock was bubbling pretty steadily for the past 3 days. There wasn’t a lot of foaming or krausen at the top of the cider level but if you looked closely you could see little CO2 bubbles piercing the surface.
When I checked it this morning, the airlock bubbling was down to every 5 seconds or so. Tonight I am going to pull a sample for a gravity reading and a tasting. I’ll post an update on it.
on November 17th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
[...] morning, I bottled the 2011 edition of hard cider. Let me get you up to speed on what has been happening since the last [...]