Uh oh, first batch, something wrong?

[AJCider]

Hello everyone, it's good to join this community! I was an avid beer drinker until one day I woke up and was suddenly fat. Ok not suddenly, but it happened. Anyway, I decided to adopt a paleo lifestyle, and that meant no more beer. Technically no alcohol of any kind, but after much research I found that on a scale of 1 to omfgwheatbelly, cider is as close to 1 as I'm going to get.

But wow, it's expensive. At the distributor.

Noodling around online led me to random discussion about home brewing, and that led me here to this wonderful place! I devoured nearly every thread, ordered a starter kit from Midwest, and off I went. On the 7th I put together my very first attempt at a brew. I used Edwort's apfelvein thread as my basis, with some of the suggestions that sounded good further down in the thread. So here is what I did

5 gallons of musselmans cider (I could not find tree top juice anywhere here but read online at several sources that this one is fermentable)
1 packet of red star montrachet yeast
2 lbs of brown sugar (again, all i could find)

And... after four days... this is the result



; ; that doesn't look right at all to me. The room it's in is about 66 degrees, and I ended up moving it closer to the heat source because I thought maybe it wasn't bubbling because it was too cold.

Should I just toss this batch?

I thought I had done everything right - I use Starsan and soaked the heck out of EVERYTHING, including my hands, but now I'm wondering what I introduced into my cider attempt.

Thoughts? Thanks!

EDIT: I moved it to another room where I can hopefully better control the temp and this happened



Now it looks weird and patchy with that white stuff.

This is stressful!

 

[ColoHox]

That is just your yeast, doing its thing. It looks fine to me. Give it some time and it will come out just fine.

 

[thadass]

Was the airlock bubbling (not that that's every really useful or important, ha)?

Did you very thoroughly mix the sugar in? (saying you followed the wonderful Apfelwein thread, I'm assuming you did)

Hasn't gotten to any crazy temperatures? (Would have to be pretty crazy to mess up that yeast)

Leave it alone! It looks just fine to me. I don't really even see anything in the second picture. The first one just looks like yeast and CO2

 

[AJCider]

Thanks for the replies!

The airlock is not bubbling at all. At least, not that I can see. I've been staring at it for hours lol

The way I ended up putting the sugar in was different from the thread - because I couldn't get it into the musselman containers properly. What I did was I poured into the funnel, washed it down with cider, repeat over and over then i shook the carboy when the package was gone and added what was left of the cider. Then I gave it a couple more swirls and hoped for the best.

Crazy in what direction? It's hard to keep my house at a steady temp but it's in the 65-70 range. I moved it to a room with baseboard heat so hopefully I can keep that at a more steady temp. I also ordered some of those stick on thermometers from midwest to get a more accurate reading.

 

[thadass]

For montrachet I'd say crazy is in the low 50s or in the 90s. pretty resiliant stuff.

Musselmans site says the cider is only water, concentrate, and ascorbic acid, so that's good:
http://musselmans.com/media/1159/apple-cider.pdf


Anywhere in the past 4 days did you see CO2 escaping from the liquid? It's fairly evident with cider/apfelwein fermentation



And as for the gunk in your picture, is it moving or just sort of sitting there? I'd venture to say that moving is probably better, but not that either would really mean much. Just curious

It might already be done with primary fermentation, it might not have even started yet!

 

[AJCider]

There is literally no activity in the airlock at all. The liquid moved to one side, but that was about it.

Also, I was just looking through the kit I bought and it turns out they sent me temp strips. I just didn't know what they were the first time I looked through. So I stuck one on there and the temp is registering at 58. That's way lower than I thought it was in here, so I'm trying to bring the temp up in this room.

Maybe that's why? Just not warm enough? If I get it up to a better temp, will it start to look right? I tried to see if the white stuff was moving but... I just can't tell.

 

[thadass]

Red Star Montrachet is spec'd at temps of 59-86, so it's very likely just too cold. I'd get it warmed up into the 60s or even low 70s and after it's warmed, maybe swirl the liquid to rouse some of the yeast up. Good catch with the fermometer!

 

[AJCider]

Ok I got it to 66 and gave it a couple turns. Really had no idea it was so cold in the house. I live in the mountains so I guess I'm desensitized to it.

I hope it was just too cold. Really looking forward to this brew!

 

[AJCider]

omgomgomgogmogmgomgogm

the temp is at 72 degrees now and I woke up this morning - it's bubbling like crazzzzyyyyyy!

I put a sweater and a jacket on it too, to try to help a little with the temp.

You guys are the BEST!

Now time to do another batch. This one should start up faster now that I know what's wrong. Who knew it was so cold in my house?

 

[Randzor]

Once it starts bubbling, you can then bring down the temp again if you wanted to. This is how I managed to get a 55 degree fermentation going.

 

[AJCider]

Ok, good to know. I might bring it down into the high 60s. My cats are all laid out on the floor panting at me lol

 

[MindenMan]

Do you have an electric heating pad? The coal fired ones are pretty scarce these days. you can put it under 1 fermenter, or "split" 1/2 to each fermenter It's kinda hit and miss w/o a temp controller, set the HP on low, and wait a few hours. Are the temps good yet? If not, throw a blanket over your fermenters, wait a few more hours, and check temps again. Your cats will be very happy now that the house is cooled off again.

 

[Randzor]

AJ,

Just make sure your yeast can handle the temp change also. I use champagne so I kinda trust it to do just about anything besides really high heat. I am trying this low fermentation temp to preserve more of the flavor, so it will be drinkable in the bottle sooner. But my ciders are usually in the 10%+ range so aging becomes important.

 

[AJCider]

Thanks for the tip. I'm using the montrachet champagne yeast so I guess that's the robust one? Anyway I decided just to drop the temp a couple degrees. I went home on lunch (what? I'm excited!!) to check on it and it's at like 74 now. I don't want to let it get too much higher, right?

 

[thadass]

I don't think there's any benefit from it being anywhere over 75. Now that it's "alive" there's plenty of exothermic fermentation taking place as well, so it will do a bit better keeping itself warm. keeping it in the mid 60s to low 70s is fine and will not make a huge difference in the end.

I'm glad it's fermenting! Ciders can take some time to be really good (I had some of mine last night that was ~9mo old and delicious), but they're easy and tasty!

 

[theck]

I just started doing ciders and on my third. I noticed on the last two, and with the third, it takes a good bit for then to get started. After a day it two you don't see any activity I gave my bucket a good couple shakes and right after it started doing it's thing. The guys I hang with love the stuff so always going to have a batch fermenting and one in the keg, until I get sick of it. Last batch I left in the basement for 3 or more weeks, went from 1.08ish to less than 1... Too tart for my taste so this time ferment 3 Gallons, 4lb Brown sugar and pop in 2 gallons when I keg. Love the fact that it takes me 20 mins to put it together, cheap and I can experiment easily with it.

 

[AJCider]

I am interested in trying kegging but not really sure how to do it or what I need. Is there a thread somewhere on here that explains the process\what to buy\etc completely? I've looked at the resources at Midwest but a lot of it seems to assume a lot of existing knowledge.

I was planning on trying to do carbs as water bottles (I've been saving them) because I read you can put in a cup of sugars, do a swirl and then put in the bottles and use the squeeze method to know when its carbs, but I know keg does a force carbs that is probably more consistent.

what do all of you guys have for kegs equipment?

 

[theck]

I am interested in trying kegging but not really sure how to do it or what I need. Is there a thread somewhere on here that explains the process\what to buy\etc completely? I've looked at the resources at Midwest but a lot of it seems to assume a lot of existing knowledge.

I was planning on trying to do carbs as water bottles (I've been saving them) because I read you can put in a cup of sugars, do a swirl and then put in the bottles and use the squeeze method to know when its carbs, but I know keg does a force carbs that is probably more consistent.

what do all of you guys have for kegs equipment?

Kegerator, 20lb tank, 4 taps and 4 corny kegs... I love it and just made it about 8-10 months ago, never go back to bottles. You can always get a nice 5lb tank and the carbonator cap and force carb in a 2 litter bottle, be the cheapest way. Then keep on the lookout for corny kegs and someone's old kegerator or system in the meantime.