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Secondary fermentation & oxidation
Hi everyone, I am just starting on my cider brewing and had a few questions that I haven't seen answered here or elsewhere.
How dark does your fermentation room need to be? I use a clear glass carboy for fermentation and my garage gets a bit of sunlight from 2 small windows. Should I have my fermenter covered with a dark sheet or something to keep light from messing up the cider?
Second, I know there's a lot of talk on the forums of secondary fermentation. How much does your cider get oxidized by racking the cider 2 or 3 times before bottling? Is this something to worry about? I'm minimizing my oxygen exposure by never shaking the cider, stirring slowly and without a lot splashing, and slow siphoning. Anything else I should be doing?
I've noticed my 3 batches all have a slight sour taste to them. I'm trying to be really careful with my sterilization (using EZ clean and all). Is this a natural product that will go away with some aging? Right now, all my batches are less than 2 months old, so they're not incredibly old.
I prefer to keep everything I ferment covered, however it is a combination of hops and yeast that cause the skunking. Regardless it is best to keep even a cider covered.
Get one of these: http://www.williamsbrewing.com/BALL_LOC … 84C148.cfm to purge the carboy or bucket of air prior to racking to avoid aerating it.
Is EZ clean a sanitizer? Sounds like a cleaner but Im not familiar with it. Cleaners are not sanitizers and are not effective at killing bacteria and wild yeast. Get yourself some star san.
Here's your problem; it's one of two things
1. Oxidation or reduction, which is a chemical process that happens to first order alcohol functional groups. basically, KMnO4, K2Cr2O7, k2CrO4, or O3, (oxydation) or LiAlH4, NaBH4, or H2 (reduction) get into your brew which is sitting there churning out H3C-CH2-OH (alcohol) very nicely, but the oxidation or reduction via contamination (even just letting a little air in can ruin a good batch sometimes), and guess what the products of a oxygen or reduction reaction are? You guessed it, Vinegar and Aldehyde (of the same functional group as formalgahyde, that stuff they preserve dead animals and organs in) HOWEVER!
2. The much more likely solution is this; Yeast, left to it's own devices in a batch of cider, will actually "evolve" and begin to feast off of not the sugar, but the ALCOHOL! Yes, it is only a VERY VERY small percentage that does this (check out an evolutionary bell curve if you don't believe me...) but if left long enough it's enough to ruin a batch.... This is much more likely what happened to your batch, as if you leave the cider and yeast going long enough, they will produce vinegar and aldehyde all on their own...
Basically, the longer you let the yeast process the sugars, the more likely you are to turn your cider into apple cider vinegar. I recomend fermenting the cider for 2 weeks, racking it once, and bottleing it imediately. If clarity is what you're after, try filtering through a cheese cloth when you rack your batch. There are also various chemical tablets you can purchase at brewing sites or store that will aid in clarity.
I am a bit of a cheap skate ( trying to pay for college) so I just use 100% apple jucie. I buy 5 gallons worth (usualy runs me about 12-15$) of apple juicle (you want to make sure it doesn't have any additives, like preservatives or what not, as they will kill the yeast) dump that all directly into a carboy (no boiling nessasary as it's all nice and sterile right out of the bottles), pitch in the yeast and let it sit for two weeks. Then I mix in about 1-1.5 lbs brown sugar, and usualy 2-3 lbs regular granular sugar (in the form of a simple syrup (mix some boiled water with the sugar untill all the sugar disolves)), and bottle. After about 3 weeks to a month, the hard cider is nice and sweet, and very carbonated.
Ovbiously the amounts of sugar can vary, I have a freind who's recipe is as folows;
5 gallons cider
2 pounds rasins
5lbs sugar.
As he uses rasins, he doesn't bother with comerical yeast, as the natural yeast on the rasins will do the trick... Granted, he's had mixed results over the years, but some of the best hard cider i've tasted was made with this recipie. It is very crisp, bubly, and smooth, almost like you're drinking champange.
My "el-cheapo" Hard Cider Recipe
(roughly costs 35 cents a bottle, providing you recycle! Also makes excelent x-mass presents!)
5 Gallons Apple Juice
1pkt yeast (champange for highest alchohol %)
1.5 lbs Brown Sugar
2lbs Granulated sugar
Optional: Cinnamon, Cloves, various spices....
Pitch yeast into juice in carboy, let ferment 2 weeks. Rack and prime with sugars, let age 3+ weeks.
Anyways, that's my 2 cents, best of luck to ya!
2. The much more likely solution is this; Yeast, left to it's own devices in a batch of cider, will actually "evolve" and begin to feast off of not the sugar, but the ALCOHOL! Yes, it is only a VERY VERY small percentage that does this (check out an evolutionary bell curve if you don't believe me...) but if left long enough it's enough to ruin a batch.... This is much more likely what happened to your batch, as if you leave the cider and yeast going long enough, they will produce vinegar and aldehyde all on their own...
Thanks, Millyxyz,
That one little paragraph made me change my mind about a practice I have been doing for years: saving some yeast from batch to batch. I used to make primarily mead. This was something we used to do in order to try to get the highest alcohol content possible, as the yeast that survived the longest would be capable of pushing the alcohol limit higher next time around (we got into the high teens). Now that I am making cider, that is not only not really possible (highest percentage at what? 7%-9%?), but not desirable. I am currently making my first cider batch, which I started using yeast salvaged from mead that I began back in 2002. That yeast has been sitting in alcohol, learning how to survive for 8 years, so I have decided to go ahead and potassium metabisulfite and sorbate it into submission now that the fermentation has slowed to a crawl. (It's been +/- 4 weeks.) Besides, yeast is so cheap.
Thanks again; you may have just saved me from some sour end-product this time around, and down the road as well.
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