Hard Cider

I started a batch of hard cider last weekend. Inspired by the mead recipe which uses the jug that the spring water comes in as a fermentation vessel, I decided to use a 2.5 gallon spring water container as a vessel for 2 gallons of hard cider.



For this batch, I wanted to try to fit an airlock to the container somehow, but didn't have an appropriate bung handy. So, I just poked a hole in the brown dispenser cap (which has a very tight fit itself) and crammed the airlock in there. It actually worked out quite nicely.


Overall, using these water jugs for brewing small batches hasn't worked out too bad. They're cheap, sterile from the store (although that didn't stop me from sanitizing them again), and relative large. They're really not designed to be under internal pressure, as can be seen from the ballooning on the sides, but they don't seem to be close to failure. I'm not sure if I'd use a particular container more than one time, though.

The recipe I decided to use was a no-boil, sulfur-sanitized recipe from Mahalo.com. This was my first experience brewing with sulfur sanitised anything, so I was a little bit perplexed by the sulfur smell coming out of the airlock at first (not a rotten egg smell, though). It's since subsided, and apparently this is common with sulfur-sanitized ciders. I used a champagne yeast which should result in an interesting and super dry cider.

Primary fermentation seems to have died down after a week. Now it just sits for 3 more weeks. I'll rack into a secondary next week.

I plan on bottling and carbonating with corn sugar.

Fermentation Start Date: 9/26/2009
Planned Fermentation End Date: 10/24/2009
Starting Gravity: ???
Projected Ending Gravity: 1.000

Recipe reprinted here from Mahalo.com:

Sulfur-Sanitized Hard Cider

Ingredients

• 1 gallon unpasteurized, unfiltered apple juice—a mixture of several varieties of both tart and sweet apples is recommended
• 1 cup sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme—eliminates "haziness" in the cider.
• 1/2 teaspoon yeast energizer
• 1 Campden tablet
• 1 packet cider, brewers, champagne or wine yeast
• 1/4 teaspoon tannin (optional)
• 1 teaspoon acid blend (optional)

Procedure

1. Crush the Campden tablet and stir it into the fresh apple juice in your fermenting pail.
2. Stir in the pectic enzyme, yeast energizer, sugar, tannin and acid blend. Do not add the yeast yet.
3. Cover the fermenting pail and let sit for one or two days.
4. Uncover the pail and sprinkle the yeast over the juice.
5. Put the lid back on the pail and attach the airlock (or rubber hosing and water assembly).
6. Allow the cider to ferment. The airlock will bubble, indicating that the cider is indeed fermenting. Wait for the bubbles to subside to a rate of about one bubble per minute, then wait 7 more days before moving on to the next step.
7. Siphon the cider into a second fermentation pail. Try to avoid transferring the sediment from the bottom of the first container into the second. Cover the container and attach the airlock.
8. Allow the fermentation to finish. Leener's suggests tasting the cider after two weeks and adjusting the flavor before allowing the fermentation to continue. This will take at least a few weeks. When the cider becomes clear, it's ready for drinking, carbonation or bottling.

UPDATE - 11/9/09

This turned out pretty good. I bottled about 3 weeks ago and tried after the first week. It still had a hint of apple at that time, but the apple has since dissipated. It's now like an extremely dry apple wine. The carb drops didn't really work. The bottles that had them will sparkle a little bit if opened at room temperature, but not when chilled. If I wanted to have sparking cider next time I'll use corn sugar.

I bought more cider for the next batch. I'm thinking that I'll sanitize by heating to 170 degrees (to keep the pectins from setting) and mull this batch with cinnamon, allspice, and cloves then stabilize after fermentation and backsweeten with apple juice.

This is one of the last carbonated bottles, at room temperature. It actually sparkled a lot, which is what prompted me to take the picture.