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First time cider... doomed to be vinegar?
Any help would be great!
We've been reading way too much and following a blend of a few different recipes.... and I'm afraid we've messed something up already.
We started by simmering 5 gallons of cider (no preservatives) for around 45 minutes before putting it in our primary fermenter. We made our best attempt to sanitize everything first with easy clean... after bringing the hot cider down to slightly warmer than room temp, we put in some English Cider Yeast.... I know we should have waited until it was fully down to room temp, but it was 11:30 pm and we were done waiting. External temp is between 65-70.
We did not put the lid on the primary fermenter because somewhere we read that the gasses coming off the primary fermenter would make the chances of oxidation nearly none. We left it open until about 6pm today, after we spoke to the owner of a home brew shop said that we need to put the lid and airlock on immediately. So we did. At that time we had a thick-ish foam head across the top.
Thoughts? Next steps? Are we on the way to ruin?
nope you're fine. If you have that thick layer of foam, that means that the yeast you pitched is fermenting like mad and should easily out compete any spoiling bacteria that may have gotten in there. I just made two ciders and one of them was a spontaneous fermentation meaning that I just let whatever bugs were in there from the apples do their job. It turned out great, so don't worry about leaving the lid off for the short time you did.
Also, you should be aware that in the next couple of weeks there will be a foul sulfur stench, kinda like smelly eggs, being emitted from the fermenting cider. This is totally ok and will eventually go away. good luck with the rest of the fermentation!
Having an "S" airlock is never a bad idea. Also after letting the boiled cider cool down you could add campden tablets to sterilize the cider. 1 tablet per gallon of cider and wait 24 hrs before adding yeast, obviously adding yeast immediately would just kill it.
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