ESB rack to secondary, Cider
Last night I racked the ESB to secondary.
Primary fermentation started off very vigourously, with the wort visbly churning around for a couple of days. The rate gradually tailed off, but bubbling was still > 1/minute until 10 days after starting.
I added the 0.25oz Kent Goldings hops (dry-hopping) as the beer was syphoning into the secondary.
The SG was 1016, so ABV is 4.8%, and AA is 69%, a little lower that I would have expected, but within reason for the style. The aroma is nicely hoppy-floral, which should be augmented somewhat by the dry-hopping. Taste is medium bitter, with no perceivable alcohol. Fairly long lasting bitter aftertaste. Overall its good!
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In attempt to reach back to my roots, I decided to experiment with making cider (hard). I did a bit of research, and came up with the following astonishingly simple recipe:
1 Gallon 100% Apple Juice (unfiltered, pastuerised)
1 sachet baker's yeast
0.5 cup of filtered water
The apple juice is Murray’s Pure Apple Juice, which conveniently comes in nice 1 gallon glass jugs. http://www.murraycider.com/products.html. This is probably the nearest I'll get to ideal, short of pressing apples myself. Traditionally, the juice would be non-pasteurised, and would ferment under its own natural yeast, but from what I can tell, non-pasteurised juice us hard (illegal?) to buy here. Anyway, I don't trust the wild yeast here, so controlled pitching is probably the way to go. As for the yeast, I've seen all of wine, champagne, cider, ale and bakers recommended, so I used bakers, as it is what I had to hand.
I hydrated the yeast in the 0.5 cup of water for 10 minutes or so.
I poured out about a pint of juice from the jug to allow for headspace. The OG was 1050. This juice is fairly sweet - nothing particularly complex here, but I think its good natural product for an initial experiment.
I shook the jug to aerate, then pitched the yeast. I sealed the jug with an airlock and stopper (which only just fit).
Next morning fermnetation had taken off - 13 bubbles/minute. There is a noticable sulphur smell (probably H2S). Hopefully this will subside.
It looks like I didn't need to worry about decanting as much as pint for headspace - there is not really any significany kraeusen. Oh well, better safe than sorry.
All things being equal, I'll probably leave this in primary for 2 weeks, rack to secondary for 3-4 weeks, then bottle.
Primary fermentation started off very vigourously, with the wort visbly churning around for a couple of days. The rate gradually tailed off, but bubbling was still > 1/minute until 10 days after starting.
I added the 0.25oz Kent Goldings hops (dry-hopping) as the beer was syphoning into the secondary.
The SG was 1016, so ABV is 4.8%, and AA is 69%, a little lower that I would have expected, but within reason for the style. The aroma is nicely hoppy-floral, which should be augmented somewhat by the dry-hopping. Taste is medium bitter, with no perceivable alcohol. Fairly long lasting bitter aftertaste. Overall its good!
------------------------
In attempt to reach back to my roots, I decided to experiment with making cider (hard). I did a bit of research, and came up with the following astonishingly simple recipe:
1 Gallon 100% Apple Juice (unfiltered, pastuerised)
1 sachet baker's yeast
0.5 cup of filtered water
The apple juice is Murray’s Pure Apple Juice, which conveniently comes in nice 1 gallon glass jugs. http://www.murraycider.com/products.html. This is probably the nearest I'll get to ideal, short of pressing apples myself. Traditionally, the juice would be non-pasteurised, and would ferment under its own natural yeast, but from what I can tell, non-pasteurised juice us hard (illegal?) to buy here. Anyway, I don't trust the wild yeast here, so controlled pitching is probably the way to go. As for the yeast, I've seen all of wine, champagne, cider, ale and bakers recommended, so I used bakers, as it is what I had to hand.
I hydrated the yeast in the 0.5 cup of water for 10 minutes or so.
I poured out about a pint of juice from the jug to allow for headspace. The OG was 1050. This juice is fairly sweet - nothing particularly complex here, but I think its good natural product for an initial experiment.
I shook the jug to aerate, then pitched the yeast. I sealed the jug with an airlock and stopper (which only just fit).
Next morning fermnetation had taken off - 13 bubbles/minute. There is a noticable sulphur smell (probably H2S). Hopefully this will subside.
It looks like I didn't need to worry about decanting as much as pint for headspace - there is not really any significany kraeusen. Oh well, better safe than sorry.
All things being equal, I'll probably leave this in primary for 2 weeks, rack to secondary for 3-4 weeks, then bottle.
posted by number9 at 11:31 AM
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