Man, I love Apfelwein

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Racked 10 gallons today! woot woot

5 went into a carboy with 1 apple concetrate.

Then

1 gallon carboy with Pina Colada concentrate

1 gallon strawberry dacquiri concentrate

1 gallon apple cocentrate

1 gallon margarita concentrate

And one gallon into mason jars with apples. Im sure my buddies will drink this as soon as I give it to them.

Sorry if my spelling is jacked. I had a few glasses and woah Im feeling it
 
Coming from brewing beer it was really weird to put in 5 gallons of fluid and get 5 gallons of fluid out.

The lees were so fine. Amazing
 
3rd post in a row. Now Im living dangerously.

Ill report back in 3 months how the concoctions taste. The Pina smelled amazing.
 
7 years later and this thread is still going. If you are still reading this my thanks for the inspiration Ed. Been thinking about getting into doing cider after doing my own beer for a bit and ended up landing on this thread as I'm sure many have before me.

Made some slight mods to mine and I've only read the first 100 pages of the thread (so far) but I'm still looking forward to it:

5 gallons apple cider - whole foods
2.5 teaspoons of pectin enzyme
1 lb of dextrose
1 pack red star premier cuvee

Hopefully it turns out ok...the airlock was going insane after 12 hours and I decided to throw in the pectin enzyme for the 2nd batch to help clear it a bit...will be kegging it after 6 weeks.
 
I made a batch on 9/21 and just bottled last night. I didn't bother with a secondary, but am wondering if that was a bad move letting it sit on the yeast cake for about 3 months. I had a glass and it tasted a bit yeasty. Hoping that this will mellow out a bit. If your letting it sit past 4 weeks, should you rack into a secondary or should the yeasty taste mellow out with a little bit of age in the bottles?
 
So, karma decided to be good to me today. I was looking through one of the extra closets in the house for some coats to donate to a coat drive at the elementary school where my wife teaches. Suddenly, upon lifting a pile of clothes on the floor of the closet, I discovered a white cardboard box with the simple label "AW 9/12". Thinking back, I must have stashed this box in the closet when I bottled the batch in September of 2012. I usually bottle apfelwein after 12 weeks in primary, so that would mean I made this batch in June of 2012. The box is full of 24 bombers of 18 month old apfelwein! Just put one in the fridge and can't wait to try it.
 
BikeAndBrew said:
So, karma decided to be good to me today. I was looking through one of the extra closets in the house for some coats to donate to a coat drive at the elementary school where my wife teaches. Suddenly, upon lifting a pile of clothes on the floor of the closet, I discovered a white cardboard box with the simple label "AW 9/12". Thinking back, I must have stashed this box in the closet when I bottled the batch in September of 2012. I usually bottle apfelwein after 12 weeks in primary, so that would mean I made this batch in June of 2012. The box is full of 24 bombers of 18 month old apfelwein! Just put one in the fridge and can't wait to try it.
Click to expand...

damn, nice find :D
 
hi guys, i have never backswetened any of the gallons of this fine brew that i have made, but im intrigued to try it, do i simply add one carton (1litre) of apple concentrate into the carboy and leave it at that? can i have a little more info on back sweetening please
cheers
lee. (uk)



twofocused said:
Racked 10 gallons today! woot woot

5 went into a carboy with 1 apple concetrate.

Then

1 gallon carboy with Pina Colada concentrate

1 gallon strawberry dacquiri concentrate

1 gallon apple cocentrate

1 gallon margarita concentrate

And one gallon into mason jars with apples. Im sure my buddies will drink this as soon as I give it to them.

Sorry if my spelling is jacked. I had a few glasses and woah Im feeling it
Click to expand...
 
It took me 8 months but I finally bottled the batch aged on bourbon soaked oak chips. The taster was out of this freaking solar system.

image-1133599671.jpg
 
rorymcg said:
I made a batch on 9/21 and just bottled last night. I didn't bother with a secondary, but am wondering if that was a bad move letting it sit on the yeast cake for about 3 months. I had a glass and it tasted a bit yeasty. Hoping that this will mellow out a bit. If your letting it sit past 4 weeks, should you rack into a secondary or should the yeasty taste mellow out with a little bit of age in the bottles?
Click to expand...

I let mine sit in primary for about 6 motnhs with no off flavors. The yeast should settle out very quickly and it should be super clear after about a month. Not sure why you are getting a yeast flavor. What yeast did you use??
 
rorymcg said:
I made a batch on 9/21 and just bottled last night. I didn't bother with a secondary, but am wondering if that was a bad move letting it sit on the yeast cake for about 3 months. I had a glass and it tasted a bit yeasty. Hoping that this will mellow out a bit. If your letting it sit past 4 weeks, should you rack into a secondary or should the yeasty taste mellow out with a little bit of age in the bottles?
Click to expand...

Some people say yes, rack to secondary, others say it is not a problem. I'm not sure what the right answer is, but I rack to secondary after about a month making sure that it is at FG. I've never experienced any off-flavors due to autolysis, but racking off the yeast makes the problem a non-issue.

I think that as the ABV increases, yeast autolysis might become more of an issue. Winemakers generally get the wine off the yeast as soon as the ferment ends.
 
Finally got around to racking to secondary. I tried a thief sample, wasn't sure at first, by the time I got done racking I had to steal two more samples!
Guess I'm going to have to get stuff to make more very soon.
 
Thunder_Chicken said:
PRO-TIP: A bottling bucket makes a great apfelwein dispenser for parties.:cool:
Click to expand...

Ha! That is awesome! Would have never thought of that. I love the simplicity of it.
 
Grimster said:
Confession time, my last 3 batches of Welch's Wine and last 2 apple wines, never left primary (I ferment in bottling buckets) me and the old lady just opened the spigot when we wanted some, before we knew it, all gone.
Click to expand...

Epic!
 
OK, I've been following this topic for months. We make wine normally, so I thought I would try this recipe. We just bottled after 3 months in carboy. Added wine conditioner at bottling. Now our bottles are going off like hand grenades. When we pour in a glass, we are getting a full head of foam. It tastes good, like apple beer.

Does anybody know why this is happening? Is it the type of sugar?

I have another batch started and need to know how to bottle it in a few months. We got the ones that didn't explode into screw top bottles.
 
stmizell said:
I bottled still with wine conditioner. The SG was 1.01, it had not moved for a month.
Click to expand...

I dont think it was done fermenting. It needs to be close or lower than 1.000 But still not sure why it would do this even with wine conditioner added which prevents renewed fermentation. My only guess is when bottling, the yeast got mixed back up and started fermenting down further
 
I was rummaging through my closet tonight and came across a plastic apple juice jug with an airlock stuck in the top. Curious is moved the dead laptop and hand vacuum out of the way to discover a jug with the words apfelwein 1/24/13 scrawled on a piece of duct tape. I quickly sanitized the funnel, strainer, and my one gallon mead jug. I poured about 3 quarters of beautifully clear apple cinnamon heaven into that jug. A small taste revealed a taste that was amazingly sweet, quite dry, and very boozy. All I can say is this Christmas dinner is gonna be nuts!
 
Yrogerg1089 said:
I was rummaging through my closet tonight and came across a plastic apple juice jug with an airlock stuck in the top. Curious is moved the dead laptop and hand vacuum out of the way to discover a jug with the words apfelwein 1/24/13 scrawled on a piece of duct tape. I quickly sanitized the funnel, strainer, and my one gallon mead jug. I poured about 3 quarters of beautifully clear apple cinnamon heaven into that jug. A small taste revealed a taste that was amazingly sweet, quite dry, and very boozy. All I can say is this Christmas dinner is gonna be nuts!
Click to expand...

Nice find
 
So I was studying for finals a couple weeks ago and decided a glass of apfelwein sounded good to take the edge off the ominous feeling of impending doom I was experiencing. I thought it was a bad idea to get TOO bombed so I thought I'd try mixing my apfelwein with a bit of ginger ale I had sitting in the fridge. Holy balls was that good. Half an hour and one liter of AW later I was trying to study with one eye closed. Moral of the story is, AW and ginger ale go together really well.
 
After bulk aging for 6 months in the secondary, I bottled 5 gallons worth of the Apfelwein last night. I filled 22 wine bottles and a 6 pack of beer bottles and had a large leftover cup of wine to reward myself with at the end of the bottling. This stuff is crystal clear, purdy color and tastes great.

I'm giving about half of this away for christmas gifts this year. I'm keeping the pretty looking (brand new) clear bottles on the right for myself.




 
Started at 1.058 it's at 1.010 now, started it 11/1/13. My house is around 62 degrees inside (I prefer cooler temps), so I did have a heater (brew belt style) on the last week. It seems to have an active ferment going and it's definitely never stopped gassing out.

Thanks
Will
 
stmizell said:
After my experience with bottling apfelwein this week, I worried about those bubbles. Ours carbed up and blew the corks after bottling.
Click to expand...

Those couple of bubbles were just from the sanitizer I used on the bottles and racking eqiupment. My Apfelwein was 6 months old when I bottled last night and I didn't sweeten it, so i'm not worried at all about it carbing up. :D
 
wburns said:
Started at 1.058 it's at 1.010 now, started it 11/1/13. My house is around 62 degrees inside (I prefer cooler temps), so I did have a heater (brew belt style) on the last week. It seems to have an active ferment going and it's definitely never stopped gassing out.

Thanks
Will
Click to expand...

You were right to heat it up and just wait it out. It could take another month to finish out, its always a guessing game so just use the gravity readings and you should be fine
 

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