Hard Apple Cider

[maize]

Thanks again Earl:


For the honey - I was talking about adding it at the beginning. A few recipes posts list brown sugar and honey to start the batch. I will take you advice and at least reduce the brown sugar - maybe to 1 lb and use some honey and concentrate to get the SG up to above 1.070.


Corn sugar and concentrate seem to be the popular primers. If I fill a carboy- I would probably leave it in the secondary for 7-10 days at 70F and then rack to the primary, prime and bottle.


This will be a mid April project - but I'll let you know how it goes.


Thanks again.

 

[earl]

Maize


That sounds great. My next one, in just a few days, I am going to use:


2.5 gallons of apple juice


3 frozen apple/raspberry concentrates


nutrient


yeast


I am going to take an initial sg then just do the rest with time and tasting. I will probably get a 3 gal. carboy to rack it into just in case I decide to make it a wine instead.


earl

 

[maize]

Earl:


Keep me updated how the new "blend" works and tastes. I'm looking right at Easter to slide it between a couple wine kits. So you may be getting near the bottling stage by then. The flavored apple concentrate is something I was toying with - since they sell so many of those now a days.

 

[earl]

Maize


I decided to make a Apple wine instead, but the Cider I made is fantastic and getting better every day. I said earlier that I wouldn't add that much brown sugar again, but given about a month in the bottle and it is fantastic. Cider is a great way to enjoy the fruits of your labor early.


earl

 

[maize]

Earl:


Well I started a cider batch last night. I did use the recommended Campden amount and added yeast nutrient, yeast energizer, acid andpectin enzyme. I decided to go with a 6 gal lot, since it wasn't much different in cost from a 3 gal and I am sharing it with a friend. I added 1 1/2 lbs of brown sugar, 1 lb of honey and 3 cans for frozen concentrate. The SG at 76F was 1.076. I used 3 different brands of AJ cider, but could not tell much of a difference when I tasted them fresh.


Hope you apple wine is coming along nicely!

 

[earl]

Maize


How much Campden did you use??


Did you go with 1 tablet per gallon or were you shooting for a specific parts per million of sulfite?


It sound like you will have a fine batch of cider in a couple of weeks.


earlEdited by: earl

 

[maize]

Earl:


This was all bottled juice, so I cheated just a little and added 5 tablets for the 6 gallons. I remember you saying that maybe I could skip the K-meta, but I chickened out. Fermentation was going slowly afer 24 hours - last night and had picked up some this morning. According to my hybdrometer, the alcohol content should be near 10% - that should make some very HARD cider!

 

[earl]

Maize


I did a little research on pasteurization, and commercial juice pasteurization kill approx. 99.99% of foreign bacteria, yeast, mold etc. With my apple wine I added way too much sulfite and consequently the fermentation did not start. I waited 18 hours and made a starter then it took off.I am going to quitusing k-meta on pasterized juicefor my next few batches to see if any of them fail. I figure with.01% chance of catching aspore ofsome kind its worth the chance.


Also fermentation will produce SO2 which protects it from unwanted organisms.


When you rack it off the lees let me know how it tastes. I've found I taste sulfur at low concentrations and it drives me nuts.


Do your campden tablets tell you what size they are? Does it give you the amount of K-meta in each one?


earl

 

[maize]

Earl:


Seems like my fementation is on track with what I see with kits. It usually takes 2 days to get near peak fermentation. The must is up to about 80F after starting around 72F.I gave it a good stir this morning and saw a lot of action.


I added about 500ppm k-meta to just over 6 gal of juice. After your last post on pasteurization, I think I could have dropped that down or skipped it. Just wanted to be safe. I don't know if a half dose of K-meta would do ANY good or not.


I would expect to rack it sometime this weekend - I'll let you know how it tastes - but right now I'd say it is looking gooood.

 

[earl]

Maize


How are you determing 500 ppm? 500 ppm would equal about 3 tsp of kmeta. 6 campden tabs is about 50 ppm or so depending on the size of the tablet.


I recently ran a test on a commercial wine, a white, and it came in at 12 ppm of sulfites. I've gotten myself in trouble by adding too much sulfite to wine.


earl

 

[maize]

Earl:


I go by volume - and maybe I miss read the label. I added 5/8 teaspoons of K-meta. I quickly read the label yesterday morning and I thought it said 1/8 tsp was 100ppm. I also use the conversion of 1/8 tsp = approx 1 campden tablet. If it helps, the K-meta powder comes from George.


Thanks,

 

[maize]

Earl:


I looked over things this at lunch and realize I probably did add enough for 450-500 ppm - in 1 gallon. When I divide by 6 gallons I am in the 75-80ppm range. I still don't know if that was needed, but 75ppm seems standard. In your research have you been able to find out if say 35ppm provides any protection, or is near 75 ppm the minimum to control potential contamination.


Thanks again

 

[earl]

Maize


There seems to be 2 camps when it comes to adding sulfite. Don't add any until after fermentation, and go ahead and add prior to fermentation. How much you add prior really depends on how clean your "winery" and fruit is. With pasteruized juice I am really leaning more and more toward not adding any prior to fermentation.


The goal of sulfite is to get maximum protection with minimul sulfite. I would think that 35ppm would be plenty if everything is clean, sanitized and you have pasteurized juice.35ppm is plentywhen the wine is in the bottle. Jon Iverson recommends 50 ppm in the must then measure the sulfite after the wine is stabilized and add enough to get to around 40 ppm. The commercial reisling I measured was at about 12 ppm, it was a 2004.


I would recommend not adding any more until after you stabilize the wine. Just prior to racking off the lees check the sulfite levels and adjust, if necessary, to get the amount you want. If you have to add sulfite, add it before racking to get the maximum benefit of it.


earl

 

[masta]

The minimum amount of sulfite required for protection of any wine can be calculated and adjusted if you know the pH. The lower the pH the less free sulfite you need. Then you have to determine the length of time you plan to store the wine before drinking. When I gathered the info below for a past newsletter article on sulfites I did not find much on how quickly the free sulfites drop over time.


pH and Sulfites


Molecular SO2 is the principal form of free SO2 that is responsible for anti-microbial activity. The amount of molecular free SO2 available is a direct function of the pH of your must or wine. Since the lower the pH (more acidic) the more molecular SO2 is available, sulfite additions should be calculated with reference to pH. Not every home wine maker has a pH meter so general guidelines are written so the amount of sulfite added would provide the protection your wine needs based on a average pH for the style of wine. It has been written that the amount of molecular SO2 needed to protect your wine is a level of ~0.8 mg/l. The chart below shows the amount of free SO2 needed to provide protection of molecular SO2 at the level of 0.8 mg/l. Remember that the level of free SO2 will slowly decrease over time, so if you plan to age your wine for an extended period of time you need to increase the amount of sulfite added so you don’t lose the protection over the years


Free SO2 required for a level of 0.8 mg/l molecular SO2



<TABLE =tableNew borderColor=#0033cc cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=10 align=center border=2>
<T>
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pH Level</TD>
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Free SO2 </TD></TR>
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2.8 </TD>
<TD width="44%">
8 </TD></TR>
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<TD width="52%">
2.9 </TD>
<TD width="44%">
10 </TD></TR>
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3.0 </TD>
<TD width="44%">
12 </TD></TR>
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3.1 </TD>
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16 </TD></TR>
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<TD width="52%">
3.2 </TD>
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20 </TD></TR>
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3.3 </TD>
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25 </TD></TR>
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3.4 </TD>
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31 </TD></TR>
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3.5 </TD>
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39 </TD></TR>
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3.6 </TD>
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49 </TD></TR>
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3.7 </TD>
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62 </TD></TR>
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<TD width="52%">
3.8 </TD>
<TD width="44%">
78 </TD></TR>
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3.9 </TD>
<TD width="44%">
98 </TD></TR>
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4.0 </TD>
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124 </TD></TR></T></TABLE>

 

[maize]

Earl and Masta


Thanks for the great information! I will have to keep this chart in my files for reference. This is valuable information for my wine making - something I have thought about doing more research on, but haven't gotten around to it.


For my hard cider, I am sure I have more than enough SO2 for the duration. I don't plan for it to be around more than a couple of months.

 

[MedPretzel]

Wonderful info, Masta!

Thanks!

M.

 

[earl]

Maize


http://www.finevinewines.com/ProdDetA.asp?PartNumber=5418


http://www.finevinewines.com/ProdDetA.asp?PartNumber=5412


http://www.finevinewines.com/ProdDetA.asp?PartNumber=6893


Check out these supplies. They are what you need to measure and determine proper PH levels in your wine.Be careful if your winehas a highpH, you may want to adjust it prior to adding a bunch of sulfite or you may get a sulfur smell.





earl Edited by: earl

 

[earl]

Maize


There is also a formula you can use to determine the amount of sulfite you need to add. It looks like this:


(ppm neededX liters of wine) / .57 = Grams of sulfite.


Take 3.758 times the amount of gallons you have to get the amount of liters. So for 5 gallons it is 19 liters.


PPM is expressed as a decimal. If you need 20 ppm that equals .020.


Kmeta is is 57% sulfite by weight so that is where the .57 comes from.


If you need 20ppm for 5 gallons the equation would look like this:


(.020X 19 liters) / .57 = .66 grams of Kmeta


So if you needed 20 ppm for 5 gallons you would need .66 grams of Kmeta.


Isn't this fun!

But what if you do not have a scale? Well there is a formula for that also.


There are between 5.5 and 6.3 grams of Kmeta per teaspoon. So if you divide .66 by 5.5 you get = .12 This is 12% of a teaspoon. How you would measure 12% of a teaspoon I do not know. But it is pretty close to an 1/8th of a teaspoon. I use a measurer that came with some of my kids medicine to get close. I need to buy a scale.


earl

 

[maize]

Earl:





Thanks for the links and calculations. I can measure PH and have a decent scale - although I have used volume because it is quick and easy to this point. I do not have the sulfite test - I may look to add this to my next order - May specials are just around the corner and I am also waiting for George to get the new Crushendo kits in - so it likely won't be long.


Racked the cider yesterday at 1.000. It was still pretty cloudy and the taste was fair - not enough apple flavor at this point, some sulfite (not too bad), didn't notice the brown sugar - I did use the light brown sugar vs the dark. The glass dropped a lot of sediment in 4 hours and the carboy is starting to clear nicely - I love watching the sediment lines in carboys!


When Iprime, I will likely add some of the apple concentrate from George and use a can of concentrate. Then I will need to figure how much sugar that is so I can suppliment with corn sugar. That process should be fun, since I get to taste and play with the flavor before bottling!

 

[maize]

Earl:


Looks like it's a go to rack, prime and bottle my cider this weekend while you will probably be enjoying the wine makers gathering. Any last suggestions or watch outs to consider. I plan to taste, adjust (apple concentrate, acid, sweetness, etc) and prime. All I have to do is finish cleaning the 65 beer bottles before then!!!!