Bottled Hard Cider

The hard cider was bottled the evening of Dec 23rd. The process went extremely well for my first crack at bottling. Here goes some pictures of the process:

First off I dissolved 3oz by weight of honey in a bit of water on the stove and then added it to my bucket for carbonation. I then racked the cider from the carboy into the bucket, leaving most of the lees behind. Once siphoned I very lightly stirred the cider without aerating to mix the priming honey in and pool any lees left into the center.

With that done I then siphoned the cider from the bucket into sterilized bottles with a bottling wand.

From my 8 liter (2gal) batch I ended up with eight 750ml bottles & six 375ml bottles. Pretty good haul really.

The champagne bottles were sealed with a plastic cork and a wire hood. The hire hoods really didn't fit the bottles which caused a bit of aggravation. Any time I have opened a champagne bottle the hood always fit just under the rim and was not tight. These ones I had to bend into place to fit. Once I get to making a batch of wine I will get a good champagne floor corker so in the future I can seal these with proper corks & hoods.

The bottles have been hanging out in the broom closet in a lidded tote, encase of explosions! Thankfully no explosions yet. They have now been carbonating for about 5 days and all bottles have formed a bit of sediment in the bottom. This is a good indication that the carbonation is under way. I will let them go for two weeks and then store them in the cool basement.

One bottle is not quite full so it will be consumed right after carbonation. The rest I will let age for a while and I have been thinking of letting a couple age for about a year. There also has been some thought of labeling them. A draft label was sent to a local print place and I am just waiting on a price before deciding if it is worth it.

We are at dryness

It has been just over thirty days since starting this batch of hard cider. This evening I decided to take a sample and do a hydrometer test. The final gravity was plus or minus 1.000 so it has basically fermented to dryness. I will be bottling very soon, hopefully tomorrow evening. I have a mix of bottles so it will be going into 341ml crown bottles, 375ml champagne bottles & 750ml champagne bottles.

Here is my sample. The cider started out as cloudy brown cider and did clear quite well without the use of clearing agents. Taste wise it is excellent. It has a very clean, dry taste and best of all no off tastes. It does have a good amount of alcohol kick but it is not off putting. With some time aging in the bottles this stuff should be stellar.

Look for my bottling post coming soon....

New Brew Gear

• picked up a 21 liter stainless steel pot, which is just under 6 gallons at walmart. This was the most economical one I could find that was large and had a thick bottom to prevent scorching. I have needed a large pot for home canning for a while so this one will be dual purpose for brewing & canning.

• 36 - 750ml champagne bottles, a third will be used for sparkling hard cider & the other 2/3 will be used for my up coming pale ale. In coming months these bottles will be used only for sparkling cider and possible some brut if I make wine.
  

*starting in the top left, moving to the right

• carboy handle
• champagne hoods
• plastic champagne corks
• 26mm crown caps
  
• bucket spigot
• small mash bag
  
• wine thief/hydrometer reader
• auto siphon
  
• racking tube
• hydrometer
• emily capper

Gear picked up when I started brewing includes:

• siphoning tube
• bottle filling wand
  
• 23l plastic bucket & lid
• 23l glass carboy
• 2 airlocks & bungs

I am pretty much all kitted out now other then a few things that are not immediately needed. The champagne bottles have 29mm crowns so I will need a 29mm bell & 29mm caps. I also need 500ml glass beer bottles & grolsch beer bottles so I will be slowly collecting them over time. Glass bottles are really expensive, so much so that in terms of grolsch you can buy them filled with beer cheaper then empty ones.

Cider, mid fermenation

Thought I would do an update on the hard cider mid way through fermentation. The fermentation has slowed considerably, if I would hazard a guessing the airlock is bubbling about 6 times a minute. The airlock smell has gone from a very sweet apple smell to a much more alcoholic/yeast aroma.

The kraeusen has diminished to a sporadic thin layer of bubbles. There also is about an inch of sediment at the bottom of the carboy, I think this is dead yeast & apple sediment. All in all it is progressing nicely and things are going as expected.

I have decided against racking the cider to a secondary fermentor. I came to the decision because of the large air space, if it was racked into a secondary all that fresh air would most likely turn the cider to vinegar.

I am planning on priming & bottling on Dec 22, given a correct hydrometer reading first. I will be bottling into 750ml champagne bottles with plastic corks & wire hoods. No clarifying agent will be used for this batch but I am planning on clarifying my second hard cider batch.

My First Brew - Hard Cider

Here is my first attempt at brewing, 2 gallons of unpasteurized, preservative free cider. My recipe was simple, pour cider into sterilized carboy, add 1 cup of brown sugar that was dissolved in 1/2 cup boiling water on the stove followed by rehydrated coopers brewing yeast. The cider was started on Nov 24th and the pictures above were taken on day 2. I am brewing at about 18c(65f) and did not use any pasteurizing or campden etc so wild yeast will be present. I am expecting to bottle at the 30 day mark.

This photo was taken on Day 7, the kraeusen (new word I can't pronounce) has settled down to a thin layer of white foam. The airlock is still bubble regularly and smelling delicious. I have not decided if I will do a secondary fermentation on this or just let it go in this carboy until fermentation is done. I have determined I will prime the cider for carbonation and bottle in champagne bottles.

An Introduction Is In Order

So here starts another home brew blog. My name is Dan and I am keen on self reliance in terms of food and now beverage. For a couple years I have been the author of Urban Veggie Garden Blog which is a journal based on my small home vegetable garden. I am also interested in preserving foods which as it turns out is an easy thing to transition into home brewing from.

This past month I started my first brew with some limited equipment I purchased online. My first brew is hard cider in which I have 4 gallons on the go right now in two separate fermentors. I will explain more about the hard ciders on my next post.

My idea for this blog is to be able to use it to keep track of recipes & dates of brews that I do. I will also try to keep the typing to a minimum and include lots of photographs of my mile stones. In the coming months I hope to transition from cider to ale to wine and so on. I would also like to built up my arsenal of brew equipment well keeping a simple approach to it. Maybe I will pick up a few readings along the way as well......

Until my next post,
Dan