Posted on 10/13/2012 4:04:06 PM PDT by Red_Devil 232
Good afternoon/evening FReepers. Yep, it is Beer Thirty Time Once Again!
Happiness is a bubbling airlock! And a Cold Brew
BEER
Good evening/afternoon brewers and winemakers. I missed posting the thread yesterday at Beer Thirty. Things just happen. So while we are watching some good College Football lets talk Beer and Wine making. I started my third gallon of of hard Apple cider today. I used some amber Agave Nectar as an added sugar to bump the O.G. This stuff seems to be much sweeter than honey and very tasty! So I thought about posting a link to a Web Page that discusses the use of different sugars used in brewing and priming. Some good info here.
Ping to the list!
Apples are in, cider presses running at full speed, I gotta get off my rear and get ready to do a batch...
Only have two bottles left from my last run.
LUV that stuff!
Thanks for the sugar link, RD!
ROLL TIDE!
We finally got a couple of batches of (don’t laugh) Mr. Beer recipes fermenting. One’s a strong stout, and one’s a hoppy pilsner. They’ll be ready by Thanksgiving.
Go State!
No laughing here - brew on! Any way you can!
Which State?
Please add me to your list.
Today I packed away all my wine brewing stuff. This year I couldn’t gather enough fruit of any sort to make any wine. Although I have been eyeing the green tomatoes and wondered if I should try to make wine out of them as an experiment, or just fry them.
We're glad to have the help of the kit, but we know it must get so much better when you do it all yourself (as much as we all can, anyway). It's the best kind of fun science!
You have been added.
As for those green ‘maters dredge then in some corn meal and fry them up! Wish I had some green ‘maters to fry up. Bad growing season for me.
Be careful if you use lactose. While it is excellent in stouts, it is easy to have bottle gushers from infections. While yeast cannot generally digest lactose, it can get lactobacillis in it which can digest lactose and raise the bottle pressure substantially. This happened at Lancaster Brewing in PA a few years ago and they had to recall a lot of beer. I have used a wine making additive enzyme called lysozyme which is a natural enzyme in human tear ducts, sinus drainage and saliva and can kill gram positive bacteria.
We set off a new batch of blackberry wine yesterday, & added the yeast just a little while ago. We’ve done a good job of collecting blackberries this year - 80 lbs! I was very glad to get it started, as our freezer space was all tied up.
Next we’ll set off pears - as soon as our primary fermenters are available again. And then we have our home grown grapes.
Count your blessings, beer-makers. It’ll be two years before we’ll be drinking our wine.
Hey use those green tomatoes in the making of Chow Chow, I have 20# by the kitchen door, ready to grind up and chow chow them, they really make an outstanding hot dog relish.
Mississipi!
I should’ve known that! Right-on!
Yeah, I hate that wait! Yum Blackberry wine!
Are you a Ham?
We have not used lactose, only honey, brown sugar and table sugar. And the Mr. Beer kits are hard to mess up. :-)
Radio operator, you mean? Please excuse my ignorance! I'm thinking of the Razorbacks, but I know that's not what you mean.
I have tried and tried to make good hard apple cider.
I have failed miserably.
Can you help me?
Yes Radio!
No, I’m just a normal radio—ex-jock-current-voice/prod part-timer.
I’d love to have a ham or short wave set-up at home (or a home recording studio for voice work).
Start off with some fresh squeezed apple juice. If you don’t have an apple orchard near by that sells fresh squeezed juice then try some Musselman’s Apple Cider. I get mine from the local WalMart at %4.48 per gal. It is just apple juice with some citric acid added. You will be making Hard Apple Cider by adding yeast and letting it ferment to Hard Cider. Applejack is made by a method of freeze distillation of hard Cider. Freeze the Hard Cider and remove the Ice (water) - the liquid left behind will be much stronger with alcohol - This method is called Jacking.
My hard Cider I started this afternoon has just started bubbling the the airlock! Yea!
When I racked it, it was still very very cloudy. So I added some pectic enzyme to clarify it and 2 cans of apple concentrate to boost the apple flavors.
Now to let it sit in the secondary for a few weeks and let the happiness develop.
Near the end to backend sweeten it a touch I am going to try a liquid Stevia extract I have on hand. It will not ferment and as a diabetic it does not affect my blood sugar readings. This stuff is very sweet, a little goes a long way.
Please add me to da list. Thanks!
You are added!
Please let us know how adding the apple concentrate worked out! I added half a can when I racked my last cider to my secondary.
MS State is doing good! But I always worry! I went to State and know what always happens to them.
I hope someone can enjoy my ‘adventures of a totally snakebit newbie screw-up,’. I’m of a divided mind about them myself....
Well, looking at my carboy of ersatz Ed Wort’s Apfelwine I wondered if that big (2 gal) space over the liquid might be a problem. Well, of course! I decide to siphon it into 3 1gallon bottles and find the stoppers I got are too small, and for good measure I can’t find the siphoning hose anyway!
When I find the hose I’m putting it in the bottles and just leave the tops loose with a weight on them.
I’ll start a new batch without any screw-ups. And meanwhile get some stoppers that fit things.
The two week old Apfelwine mix is only bubbling every minute or so now, smells nice, has dime-sized foam islands floating on the top and has started to clear. But that huge headroom worries me to no end.
Meanwhile I found another ‘foolproof’ recipe for hard cider- http://paraglider.hubpages.com/hub/how-to-make-cider-without-special-equipment . Heck it’s ‘hooch’: Open a jar of apple cider or juice, take out a cup of the contents, pour in 1/2c sugar, shake, pour in yeast and set the top on looose.
But I’m gonna use my stoppers and airlocks though right? Heck no these stoppers don’t fit anything in the world but my carboy. So I screw the tops on and then loosen them when there’s bubbling. Seems to have worked. 5days and they are fizzing happily. It’s cooled off here and the fruit flies are gone (they were sure interested in the Apfelwine last week though but the airlock worked like a champ).
I’m learning hard, but cheap. Some day I’ll be ready for quality brewing.
Yeah, bless their hearts!
And now, there goes TN.
Saw that! Krap! See what I mean.
What the heck is going on with State??? They are doing good and winning! Nice!
What kind of apple cider are you starting with?
Time to reach beervana!
We’re listening to it on the radio! Go BULLDOGS!
You don’t sound like a “newbie” to this real newbie! :-)
They just did GOOD!
YES! The DAWGS!
We plan on bottling our GewÜrztraminer from 2011. (We call it Kraut Wine and have a picture of Colonel Klink on the label.)
Our Cabernet and Chianti for 2012 are fermenting!
That headspace isn’t a real big deal. As soon as it starts fermenting, the Co2 will form a layer right on top of the cider since it is heavier than air and a high Co2 environment is extremely toxic to nearly everything.
As for the bubblers, I have not used them in at least 10 years. Although it is very satisfying to see and hear the bubbling, it just isn’t needed. I put a piece of aluminum foil on top and call it good. The foil is sanitary, keeps bugs and nasties out. If you cold crash prior to racking as I do, the bubblers are a PITA anyway since they suck whatever liquid you have in them into the carboy as the temps go down.
Happy brewing,
knewshound
Good game!
The raisins are very good for the cider. They provide the nutrients that the yeast needs to stay healthy during the fermentation process. I usually add a commercial natural yeast nutrient to everything I brew. Add the raisins when you pitch the yeast in the primary fermentation.
The Cider I started yesterday is really bubbling away this morning. Very active bubbles rising rapidly up through the cider. The yeasties are very happy! Not violent but very, very pleasing to see. The airlock is bubbling 37 times per min. or about every 1.6 seconds. Nice action!
We’ve discovered a good bargain in Burgundies: Savigny-les-Beaune Vieilles Vignes, “Maison Roche De Bellene”. Got it for $16.99/bottle from Wines til Sold Out. Malolactic fermentation, very tasty.
You can use a balloon with a pin hole for your airlock/stopper. They work quite well and would be better than your loose tops. I would be more worried about that air space in a secondary. In the primary, if your fermentation is going well, that space will be filled with CO2. Your foam islands are probably just yeasties gathering for a final confab. If they start looking hairy you may have an infection - mold.
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