Fall 2005 Batch #2, Pine Hill Orchard blend, Lalvin D47 yeast
Blend Notes
Purchased on 11/05/2005 during
Ciderday 2005
in Franklin County at Pine Hill
Orchards.
Their "Zero Blend" was:
| Amount: | 5 gallons |
| Specific Gravity: | 1.050 |
| % Sugar: | 12.5 |
| Potential Alcohol: | 6.5 |
| PH: | unknown |
Additives
11/6/05:
44 oz cane sugar, purchased at Shaws in Groton, organic section
1 oz light brown sugar (cuz I ran out of cane)
1 tsp Tannin Powder, purchased at
Modern Brewer in
Cambridge
6 Campden Tablets, puchased at Modern Brewer. Each tab is 30ppm/gal,
apparently a smaller size that what is typically mentioned in books
and used by the Ciderday cider makers. My math says this is 36 ppm
for the batch, which is a very low dosage, hoping that some of the
wild yeast will help out the cultured.
11/7/05:
2 packets of Lalvin D47 yeast in
4 oz brita water. Yeast purchased at
NFG Home Brew in
Leominster for 79 cents/pack.
4/15/06:
Cane sugar bought at Whole Foods Alewife
Bottle caps bought at Modern Brewer in Cambridge. ~ $5 for a pound,
which should last this season and next at least.
Notes
This will be a very basic cider recipe. If it turns out well I'll probably prime some bottles with sugar and leave some still.
11/5/05: Purchased at Pine Hill Orchard, transported home in coolers.
11/6/05: Cleaned two 5 gal glass carboys by filling with warm water in upstairs bathtub, dumping in 1 Tbl(?) bleach, let sit for 30 minutes, then drained for 30 minutes. Funnel and turkey baster sat in a bleach bath for an equal time. Tested juice for specific gravity and taste tested. Funnelled in one gallon of juice, poured in sugar using plastic-flexi-mat, poured in tannin powder with mat, crushed 6 campden tablets and added those via the mat, swirled, and poured in remaining juice. Covered top with cheesecloth, wrapped barmop around neck, and moved carboy down cellar in milk crate. Half a tab of capden was added to the extra gallon jug which went into the fridge for topping off.
11/7/05: Soaked a glass measuring cup and the baster in bleach water
for 30 minutes and let dry. Measure 4 oz of brita water into the
measuring cup and nuked it up to 105 degrees F. The probe thermometer
was clean but not bleached and therefore might be cause for concern,
but the water itself wasn't microbe-free either. If this causes
problems a possible solution would be to nuke the water to boiling for
a while (though you'll need some clean object in the water to produce
bubbles) and let it drop down to proper temperature.
Regardless,
to the water we added the two Lalvin D47 yeast packets and let it sit
for 15 minutes then stirred well. Some yeast stuck to the probe
(which was used for stirring) but since we were using two packets I
didn't mind losing some. We bastered out some cider from the carboy
and dumped in the yeasty water.
11/8/05 (evening): The carboy is starting to ferment, with suds up to the top of the neck, and I removed the cheesecloth.
11/9/05 (morning): Suds are snaking far out of the carboy now, onto the barmop around the neck. We'll replace the barmop tonight.
11/10/05 (morning): Sud snake now gone. Tons of little bubbles rapidly rising through the cider.
11/12/05: Doesn't look like the sud snake is going to return so I've plopped some cheesecloth over the top to keep the bugs out.
December: Installed air/water lock. Used vodka for a liquid seal.
Early spring: Realized much of the vodka had evaporated. Refilled. Need to keep a better eye on that next year.
4/8/06: Bleach-cleaned a turkey baster and took a sample. A bit rough but nothing nasty. We'll bottle next week.
4/15/06: Bottling. Outside with Dawn and Tom. 6' length of 3/8"
clear tube to rack from carboy into 7 gallon bucket, with carboy on
table and bucket on chair. Moved bucket down to ground level near the
end...works much better that way. Faster and less air bubbles.
6' length of 5/16" tubing to the bottle stopper device to fill bottles
from bucket on table to bottle at ground level. Use a shorter length
of tubing next time. Assuming 5 gallons of cider to take 1/2 cup
sugar to one pint water mixture, we created a 3/4 batch of sugar
mixture. After bottling our still cider we stirred the sugar mixture
into the remaining cider in the bucket.
Filled two 22 oz bottles plus twelve 12 oz bottles still. (labelled '2s')
Filled two 22 oz bottles plus twenty-eight 12 oz bottles
sparkling. (labelled '2') Probably not enough to warrent how much
sugar-water we put in...should have made a 60% mixture instead of a
75%. Hope for no explosions. Next time just prime the whole batch.
The last two of these 12 oz'ers had to be poured from the bucket into
the bottles due to air bubbles in the tubing. These went straight to
the fridge and will be the first ones to test.
568 oz total (5 gallons is 640 oz). 88.75% of the carboy utilized. Just less than 8 six-packs.
08/9/06: Tried both a 12oz sparkling and still. The sparkling had a
funky smell to it which disappated over 20 minutes or so after pouring
and tasted okay...improving as the smell left. A little biting. Only
barely effervescent. Perhaps this will chill out with more time.
The still was very good. No weird smell like the sparkling.