Posted: 9/12/2023 9:56:33 AM EDT
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Going to dip my toe into home brewing by making a cider. Prefer not too dry but not too sweet either. Y'all have any yeast recommendations? (or any other general recommendations?) I'm planning on making about a gallon. Going to pick up equipment and supplies this weekend. |
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I've had good results with both safcider and red star cotes de blanc wine yeast. "Dry vs sweet" is going to be more affected by how/whether you back-sweeten than what yeast you use, imo. Any yeast you pick is going to use up all of the fermentable sugar unless you make an incredibly high gravity cider. |
Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. - Adm James Stockdale
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Originally Posted By JacobusRex: Tried my cider a while ago. It turned out well but didn't carbonate. I'm still very pleased with it. I've also got a cherry apple cider aging and hopefully carbonating. I just started two different recipes. One a sort of cherry "cyser" and the other closer to true mead. Mead: 7.5 pounds of whole cherries, pitted and frozen. I put those in a big pot on the stove and slowly warmed them up and mashed them as I went. Continued this until consistency was where I wanted it and temperature reached 150. Then I turned the burner off and let it cool. Goal was to get it to 150f for 15 or more minutes to kill any nasties on or in the fruit. Then I dump the fruit and juice into a nylon bag in a measuring glass so I could get an idea of how much juice I was getting. For future purposes, 7.5 pounds (at least of these big cherries) equals about 10 cups of juice. I then tied off the bag of cherry skins and set it to the side to throw into the fermenter as the last thing. 3 pounds of honey. 6 quarts of HEB select Montmorrency Cherry Juice Zest of 1 large orange 1 cup of black tea (2 bags)... probably not needed since I'm adding the skins back. The cherry skins probably have alot of tannin. 1 tsp of pectic enzyme 2 grams of Fermaid K 1 pack of Red Star cote des blanc All went into a 3 gallon wide mouth fermonster. Even though its a 2 gallon batch, I needed the extra volume for the solids. Original Gravity measured at 1.100 Cherry/Apple "Cyser" 3 qts cherry juice 1 qt apple juice 8 oz honey 1 cup black tea 1/2 packet of Safcider AB-1 Original Gravity measured out at 1.065 |
Never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be. - Adm James Stockdale