2/18/23
I bought 2 bushels of apples at Devoe’s. 1 bag consisted of large yellow apples that I believe were golden delicious. These pressed a little mushy but weren’t too bad to press. The other 3 bags consisted of mostly a red apple with little yellow streaks. Probably fuji. They pressed wonderfully. I measured the cider from each type separately, and both measured to an alcohol potential of 5%. They pressed into a 6-gallon carboy and a 1-gallon carboy, with about a liter to spare to drink as regular cider. I added pectic enzyme and swirled the 1-and-6-gallon carboys and put them upstairs with a clean cloth covering the top. I need to figure out the timing for:
- Looks like the *correct* order would have been:
- Add k-meta powder immediately after pressing (S02 can deactivate the pectic enzyme, and tablets contain a binder)
- 12-24 hours later add pectic enzyme
- 12-24 hours later add yeast and yeast nutrient
- I messed up and added pectic enzyme first. So now what is my planned schedule?
- Added pectic enzyme at noon, immediately after pressing
- Once lots of sediment drops out, wait an hour or two then add campden tablets.
- Wait 12-24 hours and add yeast and yeast nutrient.
- Pectic Enzyme - according to pkg instructions - ½ tsp per gallon - added immediately after pressing.
- Campden tablets
- Yeast
- Yeast nutrient (2 tsp for the big carboy worked well previously) (which I’m out of. I might need to buy more).
3/5/23
I auto-siphoned from c23 and c24, filling the two kegs. I also had a little left over from the first batch which went into a growler. There ended up being a little bit of c24 left over, which got mixed with the sediment and I bottled it (those 5 extra bottles will be *very* sedimenty, but couldn’t hurt to see what happens to them).
3/18/23
I printed labels and filled some ciders using my new TapCooler counter-pressure bottle filler. I definitely made some mistakes this day. There is a deliberate set of steps to take, I kept forgetting important steps like turning off the cider flow when I was done, yielding a small firehose of cider shooting all over the place. And I also learned that it is, in fact, important that the cider and the bottles be cold. Otherwise the CO2 foams up like crazy.
3/23/23
I bottled more ciders. This time I was much more careful to keep bottles chilled. It worked out much better this way.