Turns out I didn't have any bottle bombs!! I bottelled in glass but I lost 1 when I was capping the bottles (clamped too hard) and another during pasteurization.
My Cider Story
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Turns out I didn't have any bottle bombs!! I bottelled in glass but I lost 1 when I was capping the bottles (clamped too hard) and another during pasteurization.
I also started a 5 gallon batch of sweet black cherry earlier last week. Starting gravity was 10.70 and its bubbling like crazy. I'll post all the recipes I've used soon. Just want to make sure everything turns out good.
ericbw
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When you lost one in pasteurization, did it pop? Explode? In the water? Details!!!
What I believed had happened is that when I was capping the bottles I remember one having a hairline fracture from the top down an inch. When it was under pressure during pasteurization a small but round piece of glass punched through at the bottom of the crack creating a hole rendering the bottle useless. The majority of the bottle was fine it was just that hole.
Hope this cleared everything up for you.
ericbw
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A few weeks after bottling and they're Crystal clear and ready to enjoy. So suprised by how good they taste. Especially the berry mix. Originally after opening a bottle to ensure I had the correct carbonating they didn't taste great. Not bad but not great. Left them for a few weeks and they have developed such great flavors. Very happy.
I only have a few bottles left from this batch and now the taste seems to subside a little. It taste more like a week sparkling wine now than what it did 3 weeks ago. Going to be bottling a few of my batches up of my new recipies this weekend so there will be some screenshots incoming!
I kept a bottle of the cherry cider and I tasted it at this year's thanksgiving with some family and friends. I put it up against other things in a blind. It aged so interestingly but well. It tasted like a slightly less tart lindermans framboise. Had cherry and all sorts of berry flavours. Not much sweetness but tart which helped. This cider journey started in Tuscon Arizona and took me all the way up to Colorado. I've moved into brewing all sorts of beers and I'm mostly into whiskey right now. I'm looking at making another thread here soon as I restart my love for brewing. Looking at creating a solid wheat ale that I can perfect and then try to perfect a peach wheat, much like four peaks peach wheat.
This might be a little late for your first batch, but you haven't mentioned pH or TA. As the bulk of your apples are "eating" varieties, it is likely that your pH will be high (maybe 4.0 or so) and TA low. This typically results in a fairly bland cider without much bite.
Adding malic acid will let you get to a pH below 3.8 and TA above 6g/L and do wonders for the taste and "preservability" of the cider. How do I know???... most of the apples from my trees are eating varieties but I do have some more tart types (I press Red Delicious, Pomme de Neige, Granny Smith, Cox's Orange Pippin, Balerina and end up with a blend that is determined by how many apples I have) so adding malic acid to whatever blend I end up with can make quite a difference. I measure the pH and TA when fermentation has finished, then add the acid by taste and try to end up with a low pH (below 3.6) and TA around 7g/L.
I have attached some information about carbonation and heat pasteurising FYI.
Adding malic acid will let you get to a pH below 3.8 and TA above 6g/L and do wonders for the taste and "preservability" of the cider. How do I know???... most of the apples from my trees are eating varieties but I do have some more tart types (I press Red Delicious, Pomme de Neige, Granny Smith, Cox's Orange Pippin, Balerina and end up with a blend that is determined by how many apples I have) so adding malic acid to whatever blend I end up with can make quite a difference. I measure the pH and TA when fermentation has finished, then add the acid by taste and try to end up with a low pH (below 3.6) and TA around 7g/L.
I have attached some information about carbonation and heat pasteurising FYI.
Whoops... just noticed the age of the thread... I didn't realise that it went to two pages and thought it was new (too much Xmas Cheer!). All go back to sleep and ignore the post above....zzzzzz!
Yes, I don't think that back sweetening will make a huge difference to TA or pH. Sugar probably won't but AJC might make slight difference. In any case if it moves things in the "right" direction it would help rather than hinder.
Last year I made up a gallon (5 litres to us) of Red Delicious simply because I had the surplus apples, then let it naturally ferment with no added yeast all the way down to 1.000. It was split into 2 x 2 litre batches after discarding the settled pulp etc, so that I could try adding sugar to one batch and AJC to the other to see if the end results were different (no noticable difference in the end). Both were quite bland when AJC or sugar was added to 1.008 which was the sweetness level where I wanted them to finish.
Adding 1/2 teaspoon of malic acid to each really improved the taste and bite. TA went up to 0.7% and pH3.8 (down from 4.1). I then added the AJC or sugar to 1.012, bottled and heat pasteurised at 65C when the bottle pressure reached 2 volumes CO2 which should mean that the bottle SG had dropped to 1.008. (I use a Grolsch bottle with a pressure gauge in the cap to monitor carbonation, but the soda bottle squeeze test works O.K. as well).
The end result was a quite acceptable "Sweet Red Delicious Cider". Not the best I have ever made since it was a single variety rather than a blend but a quite inoffensive quaffer (apart from the ABV) at around 7% ABV (6.5% from the OG of 1.050 and 0.5% from the sugar fermented for the carbonation).
Anyhow, the trials were worth doing as I learned a lot for future occasions.
Last year I made up a gallon (5 litres to us) of Red Delicious simply because I had the surplus apples, then let it naturally ferment with no added yeast all the way down to 1.000. It was split into 2 x 2 litre batches after discarding the settled pulp etc, so that I could try adding sugar to one batch and AJC to the other to see if the end results were different (no noticable difference in the end). Both were quite bland when AJC or sugar was added to 1.008 which was the sweetness level where I wanted them to finish.
Adding 1/2 teaspoon of malic acid to each really improved the taste and bite. TA went up to 0.7% and pH3.8 (down from 4.1). I then added the AJC or sugar to 1.012, bottled and heat pasteurised at 65C when the bottle pressure reached 2 volumes CO2 which should mean that the bottle SG had dropped to 1.008. (I use a Grolsch bottle with a pressure gauge in the cap to monitor carbonation, but the soda bottle squeeze test works O.K. as well).
The end result was a quite acceptable "Sweet Red Delicious Cider". Not the best I have ever made since it was a single variety rather than a blend but a quite inoffensive quaffer (apart from the ABV) at around 7% ABV (6.5% from the OG of 1.050 and 0.5% from the sugar fermented for the carbonation).
Anyhow, the trials were worth doing as I learned a lot for future occasions.
