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First Cider
I am on my first attempt of a hard cider. I used 5 gal of unpasteurized local pressed cider and added a few Camden tablets. O.G. was 1.050. I Let it sit for about 4 days and added 1.5 Tsp of yeast nutrient and 1.5 Tsp of pectic enzyme and 1 Pack of Red star Champagne yeast.
The fermentation started after about 4 days and lasted about another 3-4. I let it sit in the carboy for two full weeks and today got a F.G. of 1.002 which should be about 6.5% ABV. I do not want a really strong cider and 6.6% would be perfect for me. Should I add a few more tablets now before racking or later or not at all?
I would like some advice from the forum based on the experience the group has.
Thanks in advance
Well it depends on how dry you want it and if you're planning on making it sparkling or still. 1.002 still has just a bit of sweetness (albeit not much, but red star champagne yeast can ferment that stuff down to .992). If you like it like that than add Potasseum Sorbate to stop fermentation and drink away, but you will have a still cider. You could also backsweeten to taste if it's too dry a few days after adding the Sorbate. Make sure you give the sorbate a few days to take effect before you bottle if you're using wine bottles, because it doesn't kill the yeast, but will keep the yeast from reproducing, so it takes a few days for the active yeast already in the cider to peter out and sink to the bottom.
If you want it sparkling, just rack into the secondary, let it settle out and clear and continue to ferment completely out (which it sounds like it will continue to do) and when you bottle put a 1/2 tsp of white sugar in a 12 oz beer bottle or a heaping tsp of white sugar in a champagne bottle and wait another 2 months before opening. Champagne yeast will ferment regular table sugar so no need to use dextrose or corn sugar. If you bottled it now AND added priming sugar that Red Star will probably blow your bottles to pieces or at least you'll have cap projectiles flying around your basement.
Sweeter and sparkling is near impossible to achieve, there are ways to do it but you might just want to keep it simple for your first go around. You could backsweeten with a little splenda, which I'm told the yeast can't ferment. Or pasturize (see the "Priming for Carbonation" thread further down in Brewing Cider, there I posted a link to a good method of pasturizing a sweeter cider that worked for me, but it's still tricky.)...This site has a really good and active forum for cider, so read through some of these other threads and you can find a lot of realy usefull information on all kinds of cider techniques. It's one of the main reasons I came to this site rather than homebrewtalk which is much more geared to beer than wine, cider and mead.
As a note for future ciders too, you could probably skip the pectic enzyme, because you didn't boil any of the cider and set pectins. It won't help it clear that much because the foggyness of the cider is the yeast floating around in there, racking will clear it better, or cold crashing, but I'm not a big fan of that method. I often will rack my ciders two or three times before I bottle, but I do a bigger cider, around 12-14% ABV. You'll be amazed what just one racking will do to clear it after a day or two.
One last note, cider tends to get better with age, so drink away, but save yourself a six pack for next october and see what flavors it achieves. If you're looking to keep yourself to a lower alcohol content, like the mid 6% range, try ordering some english cider yeast striains, or go with an ale yeast rather than the red star, that champagne yeast can keep on trucking up to 16 or even 19% ABV, unless you like your cider bone dry. You didn't do anything wrong, just food for thought.
Cheers, and good luck!
Based on your reply here is what I did
I transfer 2.5 gal to one secondary and set the air lock. Done! This will be my dry cider which I will also split into both carbonated and non carbonated bottles once the gravity is in the low .990's
The second 2.5 gals were added to a separate carboy and I added 2 Campden tablets to knock out the yeast. I will let sit 10-14 days and transfer one more time and then bottle.
This should give me a nice sampler so I can find my taste for next years cider run.
Urchen, thanks for taking the time to help. Your reply was very concise and help me continue with confidence.
That is a verry similar tactic to what I did last year. I had a batch (Honey just crystalized on the bottom thread) that I backsweetend too much when I racked the final time, so I let it sit and ferment a couple weeks longer, got it down in gravity, and bottled some in beer and champagne bottles, then took the other half (left in the carboy) and added Potasseum Sorbate, waited two days, and bottled the rest in wine bottles. I had to pasturize the fizzy, because the gravity was a little too high when I bottled and a month and a half later because it was still a tad sweet and I was worried about bottles starting to go. In fact, all three batches I bottled last year I split between sparkling and still to figure out what worked best for what kind of cider. The cranberry I prefer still, but the dry I prefer sparkling. So this year I'm making my whole batch of cranberry still and not bothering with two bottling days. And I'm making a 6 1/2 gallon batch of the dry cider champagine.
Currently buying a bottle of Martinelli's sparkling cider at the grocery store every week I go shopping, I keep those bottles for the champagne, they work great and can use standard beer bottle caps (as long as your capper can switch between champagne size and 12 oz size). My LHBS also has plastic champagne "corks" that don't need a special corker that I might get with the wire toppers.
Hope all works well with your cider! Keep us posted.
Oh yeah, AND TAKE GOOD NOTES!!! You want to remember what you did with the one you liked best!
OK, so now I have a very clear (and ready to bottle) carboy of cider and one very hazy cider (the one I added the campden tablets to) It has been this way for many weeks now and I am a little nervous about bottling it. Is there anything I can do with it or am I best dumping this?
Should I have used a different product or different amount?
DON'T DUMP IT!!! I'm sure it's fine, it's just cloudy. I'm guessing you added the camden tablets to make it a still cider, so either just give it time or try racking it one more time and give it a little more time. You'd be amazed what racking can do to clear it. I've never used Camden tablets so I don't know if they've contributed to the foggyness, I use Potasseum Sorbate. If after you rack and go three more weeks it doesn't start to clear, than get a little pectic enzyme and add that, but I don't think it's pectins.
If you want a sparkling cider from the other one and didn't add campden tablets to it you can still prime the bottles with white sugar (just because it's clear doesn't mean there isn't any yeast in there just floating around waiting for something to eat). Use a 1/2 teaspoon in a 12 oz bottle or a heaping teaspoon in a 750 ml champagne bottle. It will probably take better than a month for it to start sparkling, just be ABSOLUTELY sure there are no more sugars left fermenting in it now because if you add to that you'll have bottle bombs. If you're gravity is 1.002 or less you should be ok.
You'll be fine...paitience is a virtue and a curse at the same time...
I just checked the gravity and it is still dead on at .996 so I doubt there are any fermentables left. The odd part is this is the one I added the tablets to and the clear half finished at .996 also! I will let it sit for another two weeks and rack one more time and allow another 3-4 weeks. If its still cloudy then, should I be concerned? It is also of note that the top of the must has a very thin layer of transparent film.
Can anyone identify these symptoms to the usage of Campden tablets?
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