On Saturday, September 14, we bottled the cider, about 8 gallons. 5 gallons of Cider/Mead yeast with Hauer Pippin and Gravenstein apples. 3 gallons of Champagne yeast with Gravenstein and Golden Delicious apples. We lost about a gallon of the Champagne because the spigot on the carboy leaked, maybe due to rocking it for aeration, the inside screw loosened?
We did not rack it into a secondary, apparently the Speidel carboys are top notch, and I was advised not to risk oxygen contamination. The cider has been sitting for 13 days, the fermentation went quickly. We added 1 carbonation sugar drop to the 12 oz. and 2 drops to the 22 oz. bottles
We bottled:
- Cider/Mead yeast: 12 22 oz. and 27 12 oz.
- Champagne yeast: 5 22 oz. and 12 12 oz.
We made 6 gallons of hard apple cider using store bought apple juice from Sprouts. It’s 100% apple juice from concentrate. The gravity reading for just the juice was 1.045. We wanted to raise the alcohol content, so we added 7 cups of corn sugar for a gravity reading of 1.070 which should produce 10.5% alcohol.
To rehydrate the wine yeast (D47), we heated distilled water to 110 degrees and added Go Ferm Energizer. Let it sit to 104 degrees then added the wine yeast, letting it sit for 15 minutes. We added this mixture to 4 ounces of apple juice, added 20 grams of yeast nutrient, and let that sit for 15 minutes. I miscalculated and added way too much nutrient so we’ll see what happens.
We aerated the carboy, added the yeast mixture, put vodka in the air lock, and stored it in the garage. Looking forward to the next steps.
lovecreekfarm 