1/22/22
I bought 4 bags of Ruby Mac apples at Devoe’s (which total about 2 bushels). I already had a half bag of what are probably honey crisp or something similar.
1/23/22
I cleaned and sanitized a brand new 6-gallon(!) carboy and pressed cider to fill it (which took almost exactly the 4 bags). The Mac apples pressed much more nicely than the more mushy honey crisp which made for a lucky break, the pressing which took about two hours probably would have taken a lot more time and effort otherwise. The 6-gallon carboy is totally filled. The cider’s specific gravity is 1.040, for a potential of about 5%. The cider tastes really smooth, rounded and delicious. I put it in the cool room with a cork to sit for a day or two and let any sediment settle to the bottom hopefully, after which I’ll switch it to a second 6-gallon carboy minus the sediment to ferment.
1/24/22
Very little sediment settled out. I transferred the cider to a second 6-gallon carboy. I ran into a few frustrations (the airlock wouldn’t stay unless I dried it with an unsanitized paper towel), which made the process not worth it. I think next time I should skip the transfer and just ferment in the first carboy without transferring. It’s hard though - sometimes there’s a ton of sediment right away. Also, I brought it upstairs, and boy is the 6 gallon carboy heavy. It sloshed around quite a bit, so I don’t think I want to bring it downstairs to transfer to a keg. Just transfer it upstairs.
1/29/22
It took a few days to really start bubbling, but now it’s going strong. The top surface became a half-inch layer of brown oxidized cider, I’m not sure what was up with that.
2/15/22
29 seconds between bubbles in the growler airlock.
6 seconds between bubbles in the 6 gallon carboy.
2/21/22
12 seconds between bubbles in the 6 gallon carboy.
2/24/22
This cider is driving me nuts. At this point, I have kegged and and carbonated the *next* batch, C17, but this cider is still slowly bubbling away. But what can you do? This is a slow-brewing cider. No idea why.
3/1/22
50 seconds between bubbles in the 6-gallon carboy. I siphoned it in the guest bedroom to a 5-gallon keg, applied some co2 pressure, and put it away in a room-temperature room to continue to ferment. It’s upstairs in the closet at the moment.
3/25/22
After letting the keg sit at room temperature for a few weeks, I bottled the entire 5-gallons.
I included corn sugar in each one to help carbonate (roughly a half teaspoon for every 12-ounces of cider). I filled:
16 12-ounce bottles of cider
12 12-ounce bottles of parmesan cheese cider (a new experiment)
8 fancy champagne bottles, including 7 500ml bottles and one big 1.5L bottle
