Recent content by SatanPrinceOfDarkness

My method of back sweetening especially wouldn't work because I don't do anything to stop the fermentation. I just put the bottles in the fridge once they're carbed. I left a few out last time, for months, and they never blew up it became gushers. Not something I'd try all the time, but an...

I'm curious how this compares to mead. It used to be that mead had to be aged, but with modern yeasts and nutrients, they can be lovely quite young.

Interesting! I might compare this to the differences in beer that is drank young vs aged. An IPA has so much flavor when it's young that subtle notes, good or bad, might be covered over. Same with a sweet cider I suspect. Whereas an aged sour beer is very dry and needs time for those...

Regarding the vodka idea, it's a good question. I'm curious how it would compare. I don't have a kegging setup yet, sadly, but perhaps I can ask a friend to create a draft cocktail to that idea. I somewhat understand why people here want the more subtle flavors of aged, dry cider, but I'm...

What's the difference with the 'whole new experience'? What's the change in flavors? and thanks!

For cleaning up the yeast/off flavors. Is that basically the same as with beer? I've heard of people complaining about green beer, but have never really rushed it quite that much with beer. My impression is that most people are happy drinking an IPA that went into primary 5 weeks earlier...

I've made just a few ciders, and I haven't crashed or aged any of them. Of all the homebrewed cider I've ever had, my favorite was a backsweetened one that I made with added cinnamon and maple syrup for sweetening and priming. It, along with all the ciders I've made, was cloudy and we started...

Anyone know of a cheaper fan/thermostat combination for a fermentation chamber? I found this to be the cheapest fan/thermostat combination on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00QFWLGPU/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20 Yes, buying an STC-1000 and a fan would be cheaper, but not a...

I like your review. I happened upon this in the middle on building a modified son of fermentation chamber (I made it longer to accommodate two carboys). I think materials will end up being around $120 for everything, and I'm expecting to lager in it. That will include the ability to precisely...

Well both of them carbonated fine and then stopped. Well, the sweet one is probably still slowly carbonating more. I'm mostly just confused about why it stopped. I used Nottingham yeast which doesn't have high tolerance but this cider is probably still below 7%.

Can you please tell me your method for pasteurization? I've seen a few methods around, but it seems to vary on temperature, time, and whether you need to use a pressure cooker. I am curious why you do it at 1.015 and not when they're done? Is that to have the residual sweetness include the...

I was not keeping them cold.

So you're correct generally, but I added a ton of sugar at bottling. Way more than I needed for typical CO2 volumes. Typically when you back sweeten cider like this you pasteurize or chemically kill the yeast. I'm not aware of any easy way to have sweet, living, sparkling, cider,unless you...

So I haven't been keeping them cold. They've been in the 60s the whole time. I didn't know that about lactose. How's the flavor? I used a priming sugar calculator for the the dry batch. I think the carbonation is at a nice level but I don't remember what volume I was aiming for.

I have a bit of a mystery happening. On 10/26/15 I bottled some 4.5 gallons of cider. 2 gallons got primed with .25 cups of maple syrup. The other 2.5 gallons got 1.75 cups of maple syrup so that it would be sweet. I was planning to try out bottle pasteurization after a few weeks to...