- 40
lbs (approx.) unknown variety of apples
- Yeastlab
British Ale Yeast (A04)
I
collected the apples and let them stand in a cool
well aerated area for 1 week. I did not wash the
apples or cut out diseased parts, I just made sure
that obviously rotten fruit were thrown out. I cut
up the apples and put them through my home fruit
juicer. This piece of equipment was designed for
juicing the odd orange for breakfast, 40 lbs of
apples were way out of its design parameters! It
took hours and wasn't very efficient, I'll never,
never, never do it that way again. Moral of the
story - buy or hire a fruit press.
The
apples yielded approximately 2 gallons of juice.
I added 2 crushed campden tablets and let the juice
stand for 24 hours. I then checked to O.G. which
was 1065, and the pH which was 3.03. In retrospect
I should have raised the pH to about 3.9 with precipitated
chalk! I pitched the yeast (about 10 ml of slurry)
with 2 tsp of yeast nutrient and 2 tsp of pectolase.
The fermentation got off well and 8 days later I
racked the cider to glass carboys. At this point
the gravity was 1010. One month later I bottled
the cider in pint beer bottles without priming sugar.
For
a first attempt the cider wasn't too bad, however
I made a few mistakes which you should try to avoid:
-
Firstly the juicer - get a press!
- Secondly
I should have raised the pH of the apple juice.
-
And finally, impatience. I started to drink the
cider around one month after I bottled it. I subsequently
found out that this was way too early. The cider
had not had time to undergo a malo-lactic fermentation,
and together with the unadjusted original pH,
it was one of the most acid things I have ever
tasted. The few bottles which lasted several months
(I misplaced them) were so much better it could
have been a different cider.
Wassail!
Gillian
Grafton
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