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Ingredients: 1 gal. apple cider 4 oz. honey 1/8 tsp. ground cinnamon 1/16 tsp. ground cloves 1 pk. Nottingham brewers yeast |
I brewed up a 1 gal. batch of hard cider.
Procedure:
I brought the apple cider, honey, cinnamon, and cloves up to a boil, and boiled for 5 min. I then cooled it down with a ice bath in the kitchen sink. I had to change the water 3 times. While the cider was cooling I re-hydrated my yeast for 15 min. then stirred it and let it rest for another 15 min. When everything was cool I added the cider and yeast to my my sanitized primary fermenter and added the air lock. I put it in the basement and covered with a towel to keep it dark. By 8:00 p.m. I could activity in the air lock.
Notes:
As the cider cooled I got what I believe to be some cold break material, I didn't expect that, as it cooled I skimmed as much of it from the top as I could.
Stats:
Refractometer = 15 brix = 1.126 = 14.27% ABV!
10/9/2007
***Correction***
Sometimes I wonder about myself. I used the wrong calculator in Pro Mash, I used the % Alcohol, OG, and Residual Extract calculator. This is the one to use if you have a sample and you want to work backwards to figure out the original S.G. I should have used the Raw Wort Gravity calculator. If I use the proper calculator, the corrected stats are:
15 brix = 1.05864 S.G. = 6.42% ABV
This is far more in-line with what I had anticipated.
The fermentation continues at about 1 bubble / sec. in the airlock, so everything looks good! :-)
10/20/2007
Transferred to the secondary fermenter today. Nothing out of the ordinary to report. The cider looks a little cloudy, I hope it clears up.
12/9/2007
Bottled.
12/12/2007
Tasted
It's a little on the sour side, but you get a kick from the alcohol!
Refractometer raw reading: 5.2
Wow the ABV comes out to be 7.72%
10/20/2007
Tried a second method for making cider.
Ingredients:
- 1 gal. Apple cider
- 1 cup Domino sugar
- 1 pk. Nottingham brewers yeast
For this one, I let the cider come up to room temperature, I then took my 1 cup of Domino sugar re-hydrated it in 2 cups of water, brought that to a boil for 5 min. then cooled it back down in the refrigerator.
I prepared my yeast in the standard fashion, when everything was cool, I added the cider, and sugar - took a measurement, then pitched the yeast. Put a airlock on it and put in the basement.
Measurements:
Cider only = 14 brix = 1.05454 = 5.87%
Cider + sugar = 16 brix = 1.06276 = 6.97%
The addition of the sugar only raised the ABV by 1.1%. I'm wondering if I should have don this.
I checked before I went to bed around 9:00 p.m. and didn't see any activity in the fermenter.
10/21/2007
Check ed this morning and there are bubbles coming through the air lock at a rate of about 2 per second. That's a good thing! :-)