"Charlie" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:47:25 +1300, "George.com"
wrote:

no doubt some buggers, especially you charlie, are going to laugh at this.
Uncharitable huas.

Yup, I'm laughing....because my experience was quite similar...


Friday was racking off night for the cider. I started 10.30pm, not
realising
how long it would take, finished after 1 am.

Yeah, I also waited til late at night when everything was settled down
and the kitchec was cleared out for the day. Effing mess to clean up
again!

Groan, what a bloody job that was. Cleaning & sterilising everything, bad
enough.

Yeah, seemed like it should be snap job, but took foreffingever, as I
was using 12 oz. bottles.

5 x 5 litre carbouys from the first cider pressing. 1 x 23 litre plastic
brewing barrell from the second cider pressing. around 47-48 L all up.
7 x 5 litre carbouys (inlcuding the 5 with cider brewing in them), 2 x 3
litre carbouys and 3 x 2 litre old sherry flagons. About 47 L capacity.

Trying to figure what brew to syphon in to which carbouy/flagon was
interesting. Because I had several experiements with apple juice & brewing
techniques I wanted to try and keep each seperate through to tasting time.
I
sort of got it ok. Easy part that.

Syphoning. Not my strong point. ABout 2 litres ended up on the laundry
floor
I reckon before I had it sorted. Place stunk like a brewery. Floor got
mopped out twice.

Worse still, mouth fulls of just fermented cider. Easy you say, spit out.
Yup, I learnt that after I had swallowed about 12 mouthfuls. Gees it
tasted
crap.

Next morning I woke up feeling a little seedy. Not hung over, just a
slight
headache from drinking something bad.

The 23 L brewing barrell batch tastes not the best, it has a slight
sulphur
taste to it. I sterilised with sodium metabisulphate. Instructions said
not
to rinse as it is harmless to the brew in the concentrations used. I
understand that the sulphur taste should clear in time anyway.

The 5 x 5l brews each tatsed slightly different. The two that I sulphited
and used cultured yeast taste similar to the 23L batch. The best stuff is
where I didn't sulphite and used either wild yeast or a mixture of wild &
cultured yeast. They had a cleaner taste and a little more appley. The
sulphited brews taste, at this point, kind of like the shitey commercial
ciders we get over here. Shitey and fake. Shitey tasting commercial
ciders,
with a shitey taste.

Leave to sit for at least 3 or more months I reckon & then bottle. Leave
for
at least another 3 months and maybe try one or two, leave longer if taste
requires.

Man, you've a lot of time and work invested in yours....hope you wind
up with better than vinegar. ;-)


rob

I used storebought cider and two types of yeast. One batch was
fermented with Montrachet and the other with Pasteur Champagne. They
taste different and we prefer the Montrachet, not quite as dry as that
using the champagne yeast. The Montrachet batch has a better apple
flavor, IMO. To the five gallons of Montrachet cider, I added a pound
of organic cane sugar. Didn't have my hydrometer yet, so no idea
where it started or where it has ended.

We've eight different varieties of yeast and are going to start making
one gallon batches.

I racked mine to 12 oz bottles, and after siphoning to six bottles,
with the resulting mess, I changed course. I sterilized several 1/2
and one gallon juice jugs and siphoned to them and then filled the
bottles with a funnel from the juice jugs. Still made a bit of a
mess....that last hlaf-inch fills *fast*. I left the bottles in their
boxes, thinking that I could assembly line cap them and be good to go.
Hell no, the capper wouldn't fully scrunch the caps, so I had to take
them all out, cap, and put em' back....wasted steps.

I added some fresh juice to 12 bottles to see what will happen with a
secondary fermentation and carbonation.

I effing quit bottling after two cases and put three jugs in the
fridgie to age there, as an experiment. I left it in primary for six
weeks and skipped secondary, as fermentation was done and it had
cleared. The jugs in the fridge are showing very little
sedimentation. I tasted a glass a few days ago and it was pretty
damned good. The bottles are gonna sit for several months.

Son sent me this link and it is chockablock full of recipes and ideas.
It has a recipe for, amongst a million others, coffee wine...that
shoudl be a good way to start the morning! ;-)

http://winemaking.jackkeller.net/index.asp#menubar

Charlie

Hopefully not vinegar Charlie. If it is, there will be a garage sale come
spring of various brewing apparatus. We have all heard the stories from
cider drinkers, had a few and didn't feel ****ed, until it was time to get
up and leave and then it hit. Bad hang over the next day. Just syphoning the
shite made me queasy the next morning. Mate came round saturday & was
interested in the cider. He had a small tasting from each carboy. I hoped
he'd feel like I did after syphoning, he didn't. Obviously, with that
process, it was one mouthful for the floor and one mouthful for me.

rob