Recent content by jnesselrode

Glad to see there are similar results out there. Thanks.

Question for the group: The cider I did with Nottingham was and still is noticeably darker. Same juice in all three, same tannin and acid additions. Does anyone have any thoughts as to why that would be? That just seems odd to me. I suppose I could have had a little variance between the juices...

If your original gravity was what you wanted I’d say don’t add sugar at this point. The fruit will probably add some, depending on what it is and how much, so that will change things somewhat. When you’re ready to remove the fruit, take an SG. If it’s low and there’s not enough to carbonate...

It seems so obvious that it feels a little silly that I didn't think of this before. But, I really love doing these 1-gallon batches. I was so stuck in the 5-gallon thinking that I was hesitant to even do a cider because I was afraid I'd have 50 bottles of something I don't want. There's not...

So, we gave all four of the ciders a try tonight. The first three aged a couple months and the fourth a month. They were much improved with even the short amount of aging. I gotta say, all four were better than anything I’ve done, ever. Upping the acid and tannin in them all really took them...

@bernardsmith Thanks -- I'm not degassing.

I have made 4 one-gallon batches recently, and in each case I noticed a slight reduction in the TA and/or pH. These were in secondary until the SG bottomed out and I measured acid before bottling. There wasn't a lengthy aging period. I've only recently begun checking TA/pH after fermentation...

So the missus and I tried all three. We both agreed Nott was our least favorite. Then we put on some blindfolds and each tried them. We both ruled out Nott immediately. We both went back and forth on CdB and S04. In the end, I picked CdB and my wife picked S04, but they were very close. We...

I'm sure these will improve with age, but I really wanted to give them a try. The color difference is pretty interesting to me. Left to right: Cote des Blancs, Nottingham, Safale S-04. Nott has been darker all along the way. CdB seems surprisingly light. Thoughts are welcome. On to the taste...

dupe

Well, I've got a programmable calculator app (a beloved HP 17B II I used for 30 years finally shot craps), so I loaded in the formula. Sometime soon I plan to get back out the large enamel canning kettle and do some experimenting with volume of water, number and size of bottles, etc. Also...

Thank you @Chalkyt! I was hoping you'd reply and add some clarity! I hadn't thought to let the bottles be submerged. That could surely simplify things for me. I have a large enameled canning pot that I used before when doing the 190 degree approach in the pinned post. I was bummed when it...

Yep. I had the same thought after the fact. I’ve got some wire coat hangers just made for this! Thanks.

Pasteurized today using sous vide. I settled on doing 155 for 10 minutes. I got the water up to 155 and inserted the bottles. That dropped temp down to about 135 and it took about 15 minutes to get it back to 155 where I held it for 10. My gut tells me that was more than enough, but I’m not sure...

I can't remember the fist cider I tried, but it was either Crispin or Woodchuck. I liked Crispin (blue label) a lot but sadly they disappeared a few years back. I see that they are being reborn in Minneapolis area and I wonder if this is through the cidery you're referring to? I hope they take...