Essential Fermenting Equipment?

Cider
#41

A different subject all together About sulfites , and cooling
I like IPA I heard with Beer some people take frozen water jugs to cool the wort

I think starsan is most popular with Beer

speaking of Sulfites
Looked at my beer book (beyond the basics)

1 camptom tablet will remove chlorine of 20 gallons
it has been a while But I believe that is 1 /16 a Tsp of k-meta
(I am going by memory I had added way to much
(TBSP per gallon or quarter pound in 5 gallons so it is burned in my brain , but may be wrong)

Of coarse boiling is another way to remove chlorine or getting reverse osmosis water from jewel
water is more important with beer though.

I know Cooling can be useful in wine as well
Wine grapes have tartaric acid (so does tamarind) you can cool the wine to drop it out if the wine is to acidic , and syphon off the tartaric acid while the wine is still cold
One time i Did buy calcium carbonate (chalk) as well (used in Tums )
a big bag for like 85 cents to drop acid. (lucky my wine didn’t taste like chalk)
(I could go on, about it MLF, and that Lavin CRISPER yeast I do not use , but wont)

#42

Oh wasn’t directed at you DC , about a different subject

OH cooling wine can also drop the sediment as well
I like gravity, and time , but like I said egg whites work and are easy to find at home.

C02 gas can keep a wine hazy , but not common in my experience except once

I think Cider adds to the character of it being hazy
I like beer like that Yeast haze has Vitamin b12 (and other B vitamins I think)

#43

Okay, I put just under 3 gallons of apple juice in my 6.5 gallon bucket tonight. Threw in one packet of Red Star Premier Cote des Blancs yeast, 3 teaspoons of yeast nutrient and put the lid on with the airlock. The yeast and nutrient just floated on top.

What did I do wrong and what happens now?

#44

Noting major and fermentation likely will occur. Here is an approach that should yield results more predictably:
(1) before adding yeast, mix all your other additives into your juice.
(2) “hydrate” your yeast by taking a volume of juice (or water) heating to around around 100 deg. F (a microwave will work) adding the yeast and stirring and letting the yeast sit for about 10-20 minutes. Look at the spec. sheet for your yeast (available here) for the specifics. Note, though, that this does not need to be super precise. If you use water, don’t use water that is so highly treated that it will kill the yeast. Also see the section on adding yeast in the red and white chapters of the book I linked to above.
(3) add your hydrated yeast+juice back into the bulk of your juice and stir to incorporate.

If I were you, I’d pull off the fermentation lock now (if it’s still within the first 24 hours of adding), cover the top of the carboy and give it a good shake for 20 seconds, then dry off the neck, reinsert the stopper, and reseat the fermentation lock in the stopper.

One fine point, you probably added too much yeast if you were aiming to make “high quality” cider. The amount of starter yeast cells impacts the rate of fermentation. Generally with cider (and with the yeast you chose which has as part of its character the production of volatile aromas) you will get better results with a relatively-slow fermentation. For 3 gallons of juice, the amount of yeast you added will tend to produce a relatively vigorous and fast fermentation. It will be fine as is. However, if one were trying to get the most quality out of the fermentation, you could wait until it was clear that fermentation had started (see below), and then try to find a location where your fermentation can proceed at around 60 F to slow the fermentation down.

Assuming your juice is above 65 deg. F now, there will be a quite period of about 1-3 days. You will then notice a difference in the appearance in the top of the juice, then some bubbly film forming around the top of the juice; after that, more vigorous foaming on top over some period that depends on temperature. A fast fermentation can largely complete within 8 days; a slow one can take 8 weeks. But, you should start noticing bubbles in the fermentation lock within a couple days and will continue to notice them as long as fermentation is going on (the frequency depends on how vigorous the fermentation is, which depends on the temperature and stage of fermentation).

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#45

I’m using a bucket for primary fermentation. I did take the lid off and stir tonight. It had some foam.

How long should I leave the juice it in the bucket before siphoning to the carboy which I’m using for the secondary fermentation? What is the timetable for bottling?

#46

Sounds good.

Qualitatively, when the fermentation has gone far enough that the amount of foam it is producing has dropped low enough that there is not a risk of it pushing up into the fermentation lock on your secondary.

Quantitatively, when the specific gravity (what your hydrometer measures) is around 1.02, or you can also let it go to dryness, specific gravity a little less than 1.00. You don’t want to let it sit in the primary if it is dry; specifically, if it its not producing CO2 from fermentation in sufficient quantities that it displaces the O2 in the atmosphere from the primary (thereby reducing oxidation) you want to get it from the primary into the secondary.

Given your statement that it is already foaming, I suspect it will be 3 days or so before you would start considering it, but it really depends on the temperature. Your yeast is a pretty vigorous strain, and you have a relatively small volume of juice, so it could go relatively quickly if the temperature is favorable for fermentation.

After fermentation completes in the secondary, it will need to clear before bottling. If you’re going to let that occur naturally, i.e., without filtering it, it will take several weeks for the yeast and other junk suspended in the juice to fall to the bottom of the secondary when you can do your first racking. Some cider makers like the sensory effect of leaving the cider on the yeast at the bottom (called lees at this point) for one to several months; others do not. However, if you had bad fermentation conditions, leaving it on the lees can produce some stinky compounds that you want to avoid. After your first racking, you’ll probably want/need to rack it again after several weeks as more stuff falls out of suspension. But it is a matter of what level of clarity you want.

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#47

Tennessean,

Sorry, I am a bit late to the party and I only skimmed what was above. That said, I’ve made plenty of alcohol, from some very nice wines right down to white-trash jug-wine. Here are my thoughts re: Cider:

if you wanna make on the cheap (and don’t mind farting…and your wife does not, either)….

you can go a long way on just adding yeast to juice in a jug and letting it do its thing at room temp (ideally cooler room temp, like basement, etc., of 60 degrees or thereabouts). For this I would ABSOLUTELY use a neutral wine yeast like 71B, D47, Pasteur white, etc…beer yeast tends to stress for me and produce off odors, and bread yeast likes to taste “bready.” But you can add some yeast to a jug of juice (leave headspace) be it apple juice, grape-raspberry, etc. and just let the yeast do its thing.

One pro with this method is you can taste periodically. Another is that when you feel you’re ready, you just pop it in the refrig to slow fermentation and facilitate (most) of the yeast dropping out of solution. The biggest advantage is this doesn’t require sulfites, etc.

The disadvantages of this are that you WILL carry yeast through, which you can taste and which like to party in your lower GI. And it does not store well at all, long-term. But especially as a quick-and-dirty, it can get you something to mess around with in a week.

If you’re going to go “all-in” but want to do so on the cheap:

Buckets or crocks for fermenting: Buckets will be both cheaper and easier to sanitize
Siphon: you gotta move stuff around
Carboy with stopper and airlock: any long-term wine or cider project will be greatly improved by this enhanced control of oxygen contamination/oxidation of the wine
Sulfite: Campden tabs are easiest starting out, as they are sized already. In a pinch, the only sanitizer you need, although I also use star-san for my buckets, etc.
bottles: it’s gotta go somewhere. People don’t usually put in gallon jugs for long-term storage because opened, ciders and wines keep well for a few days or less. So unless you’re really gonna tie one on or share, that gallon jug is ~5 bottles and you have a few days to enjoy it optimally, maybe even less. You CAN use plastic soda bottles, glass beer bottles, wine bottles, etc…just so long as they seal and, if needed, can handle pressure.

those are your basics. I REALLY like having a bottle tree and bottle washer as well. And I have like 6 assorted buckets, 3-6-gallon size, 3 18-gallon plastic fermentation buckets, as well as several carboys each in 1, 3, 5, and 6-gallon sizes. That said, I make a lot of wine–you don’t need all of those, but as a heads-up if you start eying up how your hobby might grow…

One more note: you’ll made decent cider with a handful of sweet and a handful of sour apples of the “commercial market” varieties. You won’t make a really GOOD or GREAT cider (to many tastes) without getting some actual cider apples into the mix, or a good helping of crabapples, or some other source of additional tannins and acidity. Just food for thought, there’s lots of info out there (including here) on that subject as well.

Gotta go walk the dogs!

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#48

You explain this stuff great! My research that I did today confirms that you really know brewing.

Assuming that the timeline for cider is the same as that for wine fermenting, that would agree with the ECKraus website that Francis referenced where it states that it takes 5 or 6 days in the primary.

The ECKraus website also states this as well as states that that it needs to be verified with a hydrometer that the fermentation is completed before bottling.

Guess I need to figure out how to use my hydrometer.

I’m generally keeping it at room temperature which in my house (no basement) is 71-72 F.

#49

These couldn’t be easier.
Just clear a bit of the foam out of way until you have a clear view of the surface of the liquid, gently lower the hydrometer straight down in and let it seek its level. Read the specific gravity off the calibrations at the surface line.

Hydrometers float at different levels depending on the density of the liquid in which they are resting. Water=1.000. Unfermented juice, with its dissolved sugars, has a higher density, so your juice starts out with a specific gravity above 1. Alcohol has a lower s.g. than water, so after fermentation completes the s.g. is a little less than 1.000. Your hydrometer may have separate calibrations for brix, specific gravity, and something antiquated called balling–at this point just use the one for s.g.

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#50

I loathe hydrometers. Less because of anything they do than my absurd skill at breaking them.

I use a refractometer (forgot to mention) for initial brix readings and generally ferment out on a bit of a wing and a prayer–when you use a hydrometer to check fermentation is “done” you are actually measuring that it is “stopped.” This can be temporary, or it can be permanent–sometimes yeast like to “wake up” if you haven’t stabilized and there is residual sugar. So I ferment in primary until it appears the fermentation has slowed dramatically (you can see active bubbling, like watching Coke fizz in a glass, and/or foam accumulation on top), then put in secondary, and I rack several times with nothing spending at least 2-4 months in secondary before bottling. You CAN still get bottles that “wake up,” in fact I have a hibiscus downstairs now which is getting fizzy and I need to put it someplace cold. But there are several ways to handle this including:

ferment to dry: no sugar left means no sugar to eat, which means no CO2 bubbles/back pressure in bottles. You can also ferment to dry and back-sweeten with lactose, and/or “prime” with SMALL amounts of sugar to get a fizzy wine/cider if desired

Ferment to crash: all yeast dies at a certain point of alcohol content, which varies by yeast. But not every fermentation runs the same and sometimes they “play dead,” making it look like you went to the point of alcohol toxicity, only for them to wake up later (this is what’s currently happening in my basement)

Stabilize: adding sorbate and sulfite at the end can block yeast from reproducing, and as they fall out of solution and die you end up with no yeast, or a vanishingly small and insignificant amount, in your bottles which cannot maintain any significant level of fermentation. This can be done while there is residual sugar present, or done in a wine run to dry, followed by back-sweetening.

lots of options…

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#51

Well, I think I may have solved my problem of only having gallon jugs for bottling this morning by simply going to the road ditch in front of my house! :grin: Picked up a 50lb dog food sack full. A lot of 12 oz. and quart beer bottles among the assortment. Bud Lite must be a very popular beer. Different size necks. Yeah, guess I need a bottle tree (whatever that is) and a bottle washer.

What is best for bottling - caps or corks?

IMG_1105%5B1%5D

#52

It looks like you’re in business. Cap beer bottles; don’t cork them. If it were me, I would not reuse the screw cap bottles. There are two sizes of caps (called “crown caps” in this context): 26 mm and 29 mm. A regular beer bottle will almost certainly be a 26 mm cap. 29 mm is usually reserved for champagne and/or European origin bottles. If you plan to age your cider for 1 yr. or more, you might want to get “oxygen-preserving” caps which will help prevent degredation of quality from air leaking through the cap seal.

You will need a bottle capper. I find bench models like this one to be more consistent than smaller hand cappers like this one but both will work. When you start capping, you may want to practice on a couple empty bottles until you get the hang of it. You can improve how well your caps seat by pressing the cap on, turning the bottle and pressing the capper down again, but that may not be needed if your bottles and caps fit well.

As noted above, I second the endorsement of the gizmo @Hillbillyhort identified to help with bottle cleaning. I find it more effective than a bottle tree with dirty bottles, but the tree is nice to have to quickly rinse a lot of bottles.

To process the lot of bottles to prepare for bottling, here is an approach that works and is as efficient as any other I’ve found. (1) submerge the bottles in a tub of water and let them soak for a day or so. You might want to hit the outside with a hose or pressure wash first since it looks like you have a lot of dirt, etc. hanging on. (2) scrape the labels off when they come out of the tub, clean the insides with the gizmo @Hillbillyhort recommended, and rinse off the outside. Some labels are a pain to get off. If you have more than enough bottles, ditch those–you’re life’s too short to be scraping label gum. A bottle brush is nice to have as well, but you may be able to get by without one. If you are cleaning well in advance of bottling, store the bottles facing down. On bottling day, (3) fill a tub with water and Star-san, submerge the bottles and let them sit for a couple minutes (the requried time is on the Star-san bottle). Then pull the bottles out, dump out the star san, fill with cider and cap.

For 3 gallons of juice, after your rackings, you probably will end up with about 2 2/3 gallons of cider unless you top-up somehow after each racking. You get 10 12oz bottles per gallon with a little left over.

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#53

@tennessean.
That is so nice of passers by to give you all those bottles.
Could be a project to clean.
In a “ normal “ year.( Hah remember those ?)
Good places to get bottles are weddings , restaurants that serve wine, a friend that drinks wine . Etc.
I like to get bottles fresh , within a day of use , before the contents dry and stick in there.
A wine drinking friend that is willing to triple rinse bottles after consuming and store up side down is ideal.
I use a iris corker for wine / cider. It squeezes the cork and pushes it in the bottle.really cool. Champagne bottles , with the dent ( concave )in the bottom, are designed for higher pressure. Often a cap will fit them too.

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#54

During bottling. after the starsan I used to rinse with boiled water, but that’s overkill. Overall, the cleaner you are the less you need to worry about storage conditions. If you fudged some parts (one time I was up brewing late and decided to have a little nap while I waited for the wort to cool down), then you need to keep the beer (or bubbly cider) in the fridge after bottle conditioning.

I quickly learned that buying new bottles without lables was well worth the cost–unless it’s a flip top or something unique.

#55

The amount of foam has seemed to drop. Took a look today and there really was not any foam in the bucket. I was going to consider siphoning to the secondary on Sunday. It has been in the primary 4 days. Do I need to siphon to secondary now?

#56

Probably a good idea, but not essential. If you’re going to wait to Sunday, cover your primary and do not disturb it. It’s probably still putting out some CO2 and you want to let that collect above the cider to prevent oxidation as much as possible.

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#57

Siphoned to the secondary this morning. Not easy to siphon. Kept losing the siphon because the hose was lifting out of the primary. Not very clear. Also did not taste pleasing.

Probably need to explain some things.

Waiting to receive a credit card to order some more equipment. Should receive it early this week. Can’t order online without credit card these days. Think I have a better idea of the stuff I need.

Thinking that I will not age this first batch very much. At least not anything close to a year. As soon as it clears up and seems right I will start bottling it and drinking. I know that in all likelihood it won’t be very good. Just hope that it will be drinkable.

Oh, I have plenty of apples left for a second batch. Will start on that soon.

Will the gallon jugs that I have serve as secondary fermenters? Picture posted earlier.

IMG_1112%5B1%5D

#58

I’m steam juicing Winesaps today and nothing else. Large apples. Going to end up with about 3 gallons. Tasted it and its sour. What can I do with it?

#59

Did another batch tonight using 2.5 gallons Winesap juice. Used Lalvin K1-1116 yeast. Used the advice from @Vohd to heat water to 100 deg. F and sit for 20 minutes. Placed in bucket.

One gallon of juice for sweet cider. Placed on counter with Saran wrap over the top…