First brew, think i cucked it up already. Help and advice appreciated

[Steinaken]

I'm sure i am not the first, and probably won't be the last, but I decided to invest in some brewing equipment this summer to stave off the $40+ bill of buying commercial beer or the $12+ pints at the local hole. Hopefully some generous soul will take pity on me and spare a quick glance at what I've done and tell me if I need to be concerned or merely patient..
I was planning to brew a cider or mead, but I'm probably heading toward a cyser - thats fine by me.

The equipment: 30L fermenter with a tap, a temperature strip, an airlock, a hydrometer, and some bleach to clean everything up.
The recipe: 6L juice, 9L pure water, 10g cider yeast (Mauri Larger 497) and a kilo of honey ~3L boiled water.
The method: About a cup of bleach into the fermenter with airlock and tap inside, ~5L of hot water, lid on, shake like hell for roughly a minute, then a solid double rinse of cold. Assemble fermenter and off to the kitchen. Throw in 6L pure water, 1KG multifloral honey, 6L juice, add sachet of yeast and further boiled water, stir enthusiastically and add a further 3L pure water. Temperature strip sitting around 26-28C, thrown into the closet to brew.

The concern: 1. No idea how long to wait for the yeast colonies to start bubbling away like a bunch of elves making my christmas a good deal better.
2. Said yeast is not visible at the top of the concoction in question. I've only ever used yeast for making bread, so not sure what to make of it yet, but there appears to be a LOT of sediment on the bottom.
3. So being an amateur i had no idea about using that fancy glass stick i paid for before adding yeast, about 6 hours later it told me 1.028. Hoping that's enough sugars.
4. from a guestimation based on reading elsewhere i should drain this fermenter into bottles in roughly 2-3 weeks, then leave for a further couple of weeks. any advice on this would be appreciated
5. I read elsewhere that if/when i finally get to bottle this, i can add a teaspoon of sugar to the bottle before the brew to carbonate?

Again, any insights would be hugely appreciated

 

[Vinman58]

I'm sure i am not the first, and probably won't be the last, but I decided to invest in some brewing equipment this summer to stave off the $40+ bill of buying commercial beer or the $12+ pints at the local hole. Hopefully some generous soul will take pity on me and spare a quick glance at what I've done and tell me if I need to be concerned or merely patient..
I was planning to brew a cider or mead, but I'm probably heading toward a cyser - thats fine by me.

The equipment: 30L fermenter with a tap, a temperature strip, an airlock, a hydrometer, and some bleach to clean everything up.
The recipe: 6L juice, 9L pure water, 10g cider yeast (Mauri Larger 497) and a kilo of honey ~3L boiled water.
The method: About a cup of bleach into the fermenter with airlock and tap inside, ~5L of hot water, lid on, shake like hell for roughly a minute, then a solid double rinse of cold. Assemble fermenter and off to the kitchen. Throw in 6L pure water, 1KG multifloral honey, 6L juice, add sachet of yeast and further boiled water, stir enthusiastically and add a further 3L pure water. Temperature strip sitting around 26-28C, thrown into the closet to brew.

The concern: 1. No idea how long to wait for the yeast colonies to start bubbling away like a bunch of elves making my christmas a good deal better.
2. Said yeast is not visible at the top of the concoction in question. I've only ever used yeast for making bread, so not sure what to make of it yet, but there appears to be a LOT of sediment on the bottom.
3. So being an amateur i had no idea about using that fancy glass stick i paid for before adding yeast, about 6 hours later it told me 1.028. Hoping that's enough sugars.
4. from a guestimation based on reading elsewhere i should drain this fermenter into bottles in roughly 2-3 weeks, then leave for a further couple of weeks. any advice on this would be appreciated
5. I read elsewhere that if/when i finally get to bottle this, i can add a teaspoon of sugar to the bottle before the brew to carbonate?

Again, any insights would be hugely appreciated

You should read the beginner stickies for starters, you say further boiling water after pitching yeast? This could kill yeast and won't ferment, also a cup of bleach was way to much if you don't rinse well enough, again you kill yeast. Read up on it in this forum. Good luck.

 

[teddyearp]

Welcome to the site!

I'm going to second the recommendation to read the sticky about simple cider recipes. When I saw bleach, I thought, no that's not too good. StarSan is a great sanitizer that doesn't really require rinsing at all. Also, I think your starting gravity should be at least 1.045. Finally with all the added water, you're not going to be left with hardly any apple flavor at all.

So, if you didn't kill your yeast with the bleach and boiling water, you haven't left it enough sugar to get started IMHO.

Good luck

 

[Steinaken]

hmmm.. so is the whole lot a throw? or salvageable?

 

[bucketnative]

hmmm.. so is the whole lot a throw? or salvageable?

Why throw it out now? For all you (we) know, it could turn out decent. Use it as a jumping off point for your learning process.

 

[Steinaken]

Why throw it out now? For all you (we) know, it could turn out decent. Use it as a jumping off point for your learning process.

if all the sediment at the bottom is dead yeast? I'm not sure how long to wait to see if its going to be fermenting or just an 18L container of lumpy juice? how long do I wait to see bubble? since no bubbles = no live yeast as i understand it?

 

[CKuhns]

Use that fancy glass stick. (Hydrometer) If started at 1.028 there is not much sugar there. Regardless, if dropping each day or so then your yeast are working.

 

[madscientist451]

Your ABV is too low, next time don't add water to your apple juice.
If you have room in the fermenter, you could mix up some apple juice and frozen apple juice concentrate and dump it in, or just use frozen concentrate (let it come to room temp). But I wouldn't dump it, for a few dollars in frozen concentrate you can likely salvage it and making something decent. If you have a homebrew store nearby, pick up some yeast nutrient like Fermaid O. Don't add any if the fermentation is done, but if you add more juice/concentrate add a SMALL amount.
You don't need yeast nutrient with apple juice but when using honey it helps. When this brew is done, you can siphon it off and just dump more apple juice on your yeast slurry in the fermenter. I usually clean out the fermenter after the second or third run but you can save the yeast is a sanitized jar. I usually discard the yeast after 5-6 runs but I have some "farmhouse saison" yeasts that I've been running for several years.
As someone already said, using bleach as a sanitizer can produce off flavors so try to get some brewing sanitizer like star san and keep the sanitizer mixture on hand in a plastic bucket. Anything that comes into contact with the brew like siphons, or whatever you use to pull a sample with for tasting/graivity test needs to be dunked in the sanitizer for a few minutes.
Its pretty unbelievable that a pint costs $12, that must be a pretty good pint!

 

[MarkKF]

Why does anyone add water to apple juice? I try to take some out. FAJC reconstituted with less water or fresh juice frozen.

 

[Steinaken]

I checked the specific gravity after about 36 hours and it was the same. Figured I'd siphon some off and try making a smaller batch by adding more honey and some concentrate. Will get some no rinse samitoser and yeast nutrient before I do. Unfortunately most of the concentrates I can here in NZ have pectin, but I'm hoping I might be able to find a couple of orchards around the place over summer.

Once you do the conversion my 12 dollar pint (on average, not the best pint mind you) is about 7.70 usd atm

 

[Steinaken]

Also, random question, but why would the juice stay up to temp (~26) if not fermenting? Ambient temp is only mid-high teens. Probably the only thing that still doesn't add up for me rn...

 

[Steinaken]

so have added 1KG of brown sugar + ~1L of 1.15+ syrup to the concoction (took 1L back out) SG reds at 1.048 now. did notice some small bubbles when i opened it, going to try not to open it again now though, at least not for the next 2 weeks. also added 18g of yeast nutrient

 

[Steinaken]

update - was bubbling fine for about 4 days, then no more bubbles, airlock water went back to balance.... so i took the lid off to have a look at it, smelled nice enough, little bubbles.. put lid back on tight... 20 minutes later, bubbing again? I thought i needed to keep air out of the fermenter?

 

[theinterneti]

It will bubble furiously for a few days, then calm down but continue to bubble for a week, up to a month or so. It can continue bubbling after all sugars have been consumed.

Sounds to me like you are about ready for SAMPLE!

 

[Steinaken]

Yea, I checked the gravity again last night. Was about all of 1.000 - will try tonight after I buy some bottles

 

[Steinaken]

So rn fg is 0.960, taste is like like a bad mimosa, no sweetness at all, but no real flavour either. Is this still salvageable?

 

[teddyearp]

Your FG is .96? Wow, that's low and that's why it's so dry. You can rack it off into a bottling bucket with some more juice and maybe some priming sugar and bottle it. Bottle an empty soda bottle as well to check for carbonation. Then when plastic bottle firm, cold crash, wait a week and then try it.

My last 'dry' batch was started with 3 qts, with a final quart without sugar added at bottling.

 

[Steinaken]

By "rack off into a bottling bucket" do you mean just pour it into another bucket, no yeast?
Then add juice (for flavour I assume), and leave for how long?
I have the bottles, I was hoping to fill em last night, but owell. There was a fair bit of fizz still, so do I need to throw them in the fudge (full) to kill that off a bit?

 

[teddyearp]

Usually when folks rack their stuff, they use a siphon. I do. Many have a bottling bucket, I assumed you may, I do not.

Don't pour, please don't.

So, I don't do a secondary fermentation unless bottle carbonating counts, lol. What I do is put whatever juice and/or sugar (for 'back sweetenting') into one of my spare carboys and use my siphon to transfer my primary fermentation into that, keeping the siphon up a bit off the lees but the other end of the siphon hose well into whatever I put in the second carboy. You don't want to stir stuff up too much as to try not to introduce oxygen.

Then I raise that carboy, put my bottling wand on the end of the siphon and get to bottling. I'll use an empty plastic 16 oz. or so soda bottle with a 60 psi pressure gauge mounted to the lid to measure firmness until they're around 30 psi @ 67 F and then stick them in the fridge. Leave them there for about a week to finish settling and such and you can see what it's like by my avatar pic.

 

[cmac62]

Steimaken, Teddy suggested putting some of the mix into a plastic soda bottle. This is so you can determine the amount of carbonation, because you are adding sugar and AJ you may have too much sugar and can create bottle bombs. Once your concoction is tight in the soda bottle you will need to kill off the yeast or keep everything in the fridge until they are gone. You could also heat the bottles to pasteurization temps for a specific time, but I have never done this so I don't have any specifics, but I'm pretty sure there are threads on HBT that will give you the info needed if this is the route you want to take. Good luck, I hope it tastes great.

 

[teddyearp]

Yeah, forgot to make it clear that I don't put it all into the soda bottle. I use 12 oz. flip tops for most, the soda bottle for pressure testing.

 

[Steinaken]

OK. Cool. So, I should put the sweetener into the bucket first, siphon the dry cider in, stir it for a bit, let that settle then bottle it... With the pressure testing, what's the go if it pressurised the crap out of the pep bottle? Or am I throwing everything in the fridge once it's firm to prevent just that? I could just fill my 12ozs and throw them straight in the fridge couldn't I? Idm if it's low carbonation for this one

 

[cmac62]

If you want it carbonated you will need to leave all of the bottles at room temp (70 F or so) to allow the yeast to eat some of the sugar making the necessary C02. That is why Teddy suggested the soda bottle so you can kinda judge the amount of carbonation. Again, once the desired carb is reached you need to fridge the bottles or pasteurize to kill the yeast so your bottles don't explode.

 

[teddyearp]

Do not stir. If you want any carbonation at all, you'll want to leave your bottles at room temps for a week or so, until your pop bottle is as firm as an unopened one. If you put them into the fridge right away, you will have no carbonation at all.

Again, once the desired carb is reached you need to fridge the bottles or pasteurize to kill the yeast so your bottles don't explode.

As far as pasteurization is concerned, I am firmly in the camp of you will explode way more bottles trying to pasteurize than you will just leaving them in the fridge. I've got some that have been in the fridge for over a month, and some others nearing a month where the pressure bottle has risen to 35 psi without problems.

 

[Steinaken]

She's done. Got some flavour due to the addition of juice. And only broke one bottle (broke in the night) due to excess pressure. I bled all the other bottle slightly and threw it into the fridge.

Thanks to everyone who told me not to throw it out, and all the advice given

 

[cmac62]

She's done. Got some flavour due to the addition of juice. And only broke one bottle (broke in the night) due to excess pressure. I bled all the other bottle slightly and threw it into the fridge.

Thanks to everyone who told me not to throw it out, and all the advice given

Looks tasty.

 

[Diggin]

Jackpot! It'll be even better in a few months.