Search results

I've done this using about half concentrate and half juice in a 1 gallon batch. Then I went straight ahead and freeze-distilled it into applejack. It was AMAZING, a potent dessert liquor that tasted like pie a bit. My mother in law got a bottle, but, believing it to be ordinary cider, used it...

I do this! 2-3 cans should give you a mildly sweet cider. More and you will wind up with a strong sour-apple candy taste. The REAL TRICK, IMO, is distributing the back-sweetening evenly; even adding it slowly as I rack my cider into the bottling bucket still produces rather uneven results...

I know, right? Winter has been holding my brew closet at a constant temp in the low 50s, all my fermentation has been really slow and consistent. It's great! BTW, when i did blackberry cider with the berries in primary it ended up very bitter- i learned later that this is a result of the cider...

Apple juice likes to cloud up no matter what you do. I heat pasteurize my stuff though, and by about a month later it's usually cleared on its own. Pectic enzyme will just get it there a little faster, but it probably won't HURT anything.

You should really do at least a month in secondary before bottling anyway. That said, I've racked to secondary from a still-active primary and it doesn't really hurt anything. In winemaking, that's actually really common, and while most cider is fermented to near-dryness in primary, it can be...

My last batch used a mix of plain apple juice and unfiltered farm cider. I find the cider lends the final product a cool, slightly caramel-like character that adds complexity without sourness; if you go whole-hog on it though you end up with cider that just tastes like farm cider that's turned a...

Could be lack of nutrients/insufficient aeration? I've used store brand juice from Kroger, Wal Mart and Target- it's all cheap stuff, but it all ferments for me.

I must be wine impaired because I just tried this stuff and i didn't get good results at all. I used the blueberry base, and attempted to use it in a scaled up version of a recipe I had made with great success using juice: 1 gal knudson blueberry juice. 1 tsp. yeast nutrient 1/2 cup...

You raise a good point. I'd been hoping to back-sweeten this for some foam, but if after 3 months the yeasties haven't done anything then that might just not happen. I guess I'll just bottle it whenever, then once it's sealed/carbed (if that can even still happen)/pasteurized it can age as needed.

So my first mead has now spent 3 months in secondary. I've read 50/50 advice about when to rack mead in secondary- some say at this point and others that I should just ignore the carboy until it's covered in the grime of ages and seven snows have fallen. Is there any long-term risk to not...

Just want to add that you should NOT pasteurize if on opening your bottle the foam fully escapes the neck. If you do there's a good chance they'll just detonate in your kettle like little fruity grenades.

Just finished, er, jacking. Yep, jackin' it in my kitchen. Impressions: -Jesus, this stuff is strong. The ice cider it was based on was already pretty potent but this is just hellacious. It tastes like someone melted apple jolly ranchers in whiskey. -The viscosity is pretty high. Much thicker...

A good rule of thumb is that it takes about 1/4 cup of sugar to carbonate a gallon of cider. So if you add more than that, and then arrest fermentation when carbonation is complete through refrigeration or pasteurization, any sugar on top of 1/4 cup will remain intact. I've been sweetening my...

I'm gonna try this this week with some cider I made from nothing but concentrate. It's frozen right now, so just a matter of sitting it out tonight, I guess! Think I'll just put a colander in a big stock pot and tip the jug into it. Will report results!

I actually like Michelob AND Stella's ciders. I guess I'm vulgar lol. Keep in mind that the US is actually one of the few remaining places where Stella Artois beer IS imported from Belgium and not just made locally.

That's reassuring. I've had to deal with the fusel "rocket fuel" taste before but this is totally different. I'll pasteurize in the next couple of days and see how it pans out.

Made my first 5 gallon batch recently. Initial ingredients were 4.5gal of apple juice and 6 tubes of concentrate. All was well and good and at 1 month it tasted like a pretty typical young cider. Bottled about 4 days ago with 5 more tubes and 1 cup of maple syrup. In the past I've had very...

Taste all the time! Young cider has a slightly burney acid-ey heat to it. This dissapates with bottle conditioning and is IMO the best reason to bottle condition. I assume time in the keg will work the same way. You should also limit the straight water you add- consider using melted...

Maple for bottling is awesome. I bottle at 1 tube concentrate and 1/4 cup maple per gallon; the taste after a couple weeks in the fridge is remarkable. Note that maple doesn't really have gobs of sugar in it though, so while it will carbonate it may not do so as quickly as you are used to.

I heard honey in there. That means it needs to age. Like maybe a lot. Backing up. All ciders produce a very hot head after primary, and usually spend a month or so in secondary (more is better). After that, most folks bottle condition it. I find my cider isn't really awesome until it's back...