All routine now :). Looks like only every other year is a (wild) apple year so this will have to last a while. Esther’s been extremely helpful.
7 Gallons Fermented and Bottled up
All routine now :). Looks like only every other year is a (wild) apple year so this will have to last a while. Esther’s been extremely helpful.
Love it!
Its been a few years since I made an apple cider. Do you let it ferment all the way dry or have you tried bottle pasteurizing or backsweetening with some non-fermentable sugar?
Do you try to use natural yeast or add some commercially available stuff to help get it going?
Hey Josh,
I’m very much an amateur when it comes to this :). While I have a few years under my belt, finding the right temperatures and the time has been difficult so I tend to make a “rustic” cider. I do experiment some, and would like to refine the process but this year has been fairly simple from lack of time. No second fermentation, I did use the fuel I prefer that always does decent (local honey) and no back sweetening. My goal is to find a decent recipe that doesn’t require external output. I’ve used maple syrup for fuel since we produce more than enough. It’s a bit of a shame in that the taste of maple is completely gone after it’s fermented. While the honey does leave a very nice taste behind, but we don’t have bees right now :).
I do seed the fermentation with champagne yeast, but my trials showed no difference between that and not adding any yeast. From what I gather, using champagne yeast ensures you overwhelm already present bacteria with “the right one”, which if you’ve spent a lot of time and sweat gathering and pressing apples, it’s nice to put the odds on your side. But again my trials showed no difference with batches that didn’t have champagne yeast added, I think it’s just more risky that you might lose a batch to a bad bacteria mix.
I’m sure I’ll keep experimenting here and there, I have tasted excellent home made cider I’d like to get close to. But I also still like a nice rustic low effort cider :).
Good Technique!
Your process is solid & I bet it tastes great. I’ve messed around with bottle pasteurizing cider before to retain some sweetness, but it ended up being fairly arduous & felt like tempting fate for an exploding bottle due to over carbonation. Doubling down with champagne yeast is a perfect cheap insurance policy for the hours of effort in pressing & waiting.
Simple and repeatable is better than overcomplicated and forfeited any day. Cheers to that!