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Practice cyser gone bad?
So I brewed a 1~ gallon batch of cyser to kind of get a feel for it. I used 2lbs of honey and 1 gallon of apple juice, I also included orange peel and fresh ginger. I ended up with about a gallon and a 1/3 after adding all the ingredients so I split the batch into two, 3/4 filled one gallon jugs.
I just looked at them today to combine them into a secondary and one of them is significantly darker in color. Also, I ran out of air locks, so the one that is darker had a sanitized cap sort of snuggled/loosely screwed on. Is this a garunteed failed batch? I don't see any reason for a difference in color, it smells fine.. Should I just roll with it? I was hoping to combine the two today so I'd really appreciate some quick advice. What would you guys do?
Also the darker one had just as vigorous fermentation as the other one for just as long. So there is an alcohol presense. Probably A LOT of an alcohol presense, I forgot to mention I added a whole lb of brown sugar to the gallon.
taste em. Can't explain the change in color, unless the brown sugar hadn't desolved enough and one jug had more of that than the other, or the darker jug got more orange peel in it, or more ginger...Were the two jugs garanteed identical? Did one sit closer to a window where there might be a slight temp difference?
If they both taste fine I wouldn't immagine you'd have any problems combining them, you may like what you get. These also taste a lot better with age...a lot of age...
So I tasted fine. It must have just had more sediment it it from my added ingredients. Thanks for the speedy reply.
Maybe your yeast settled out earlier in the darker one than the other and it appears darker due to less light reflecting yeast in suspension.
I too have had some difficulty with my first cyser, the second mead I've ever made, with some unexpected cloudiness after racking. I used a gallon jug of store-bought spring water, 3lbs of honey, and some organic apple juice, pitched a packet of Fleishmans, covered with an airlock and fermented for 3 weeks.
Compared to the melomel I made previously, sanitation seemed greater as I didn't touch anything added to the jug (like chopped up orange slices and blackberries).
The alcohol content seems high (I don't have a hygrometer or other way of checking SG), but this batch didn't clarify as I anticipated after racking, and now is forming an ever so slight pellicle in the neck of the bottles.
Odor seems off, as well. Kinda like anerobe smell?
I tossed out some, but some I'm still gonna hang on to, just to see what happens.
Any thoughts?
According to BeerSmith your beginning SG would have been around 1.070, not counting the sugar in the apple juice, which is usually around 1.040-50. So, an alcohol content around 12%, pretty high for an average brewing yeast.
I don't know the level of alcohol resistance in Fleishmans, but that might be some of the problem.
See if you can get some champagne yeast & add it.
I normally use Lavin D-47 for meads & ciders. Never been disappointed with it's performance.
BTW- Where ever you can get the D-47 or champagne yeast, you can get a hydrometer. Probably one of the most important tools in home fermenting. IMHO.
I'm with Brewski, try getting some wine yeast of any kind, Lalvin D-47 is great, Red Star Champagne is sometimes more available and will ferment that completely dry and have room to go. I'm also trying Red Star's Montrachet yeast in a dandylion wine right now and am looking forward to seeing how that turns out. Fleichman's bakers yeast will make alcohol, but it's cultivated to primarilly be a high CO2 producer (i.e. for bread).
As far as sanitation in concerned, if you're worried about touching things, you ought to get some iodine solution or star san. I use Idophor, and regularly dip my hands in the solution while I'm working, plus it's a no-rinse sanitizer, and you can soak everything in it. However, I wouldn't worry too much about that.
You can always get brewing stuff online in ready supply and fresh as a daisy if you don't have a local brew store nearby. Also you should get a hydrometer, they are a good means of keeping track, but I dont live and breathe by them either, if you miss an OG rating, whatever, you know it's going to be alcohol in the end. An FG reading is a little more important though, because you don't want to blow up bottles due to fermentation not really being over, even though it wasn't bubbling (percievably). And knowing alcohol content is fun, but a lot of people also often get caught up in thinking "more alcohol is better" when that isn't really the case. Sure, it get's you drunk faster, but that doesn't mean it tastes good. Master brewers have figured out the ballance between flavor and alcohol.
If you racked and added some more sugar/honey, that would account for the cloudiness picking up again, because the yeast cells suddenly had food again, and started splitting. You can have what appears to be perfectly clear wine, and there will still be pleanty of yeast floating around in there waiting for somethig to eat.
Good luck, odds are it isn't ruined. Use real wine yeast and not the bakers stuff.
BestMedicine wrote:
I don't have a hygrometer
LOL, I mean hydrometer, of course. Cigars smokers should get that.
I appreciate the comments. I'll get some better yeast for the next batch.
I just tossed out the cyser, it tastes like sh_t now.
Also get the sanitizer, that will help insure there isn't any kind of unwanted microbes in there. Most glass jugs aren't designed to take boiling water.
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