The Guru College

My second batch of hard cider is finally racked off into three 1/2 gallon growlers, and stuck into the back of a closet to let them mellow out a little more. All my gear is cleaned and put away until the next batch takes me, and we’re working our way through the last 1/2 gallon of the first brew. A couple of notes:

1. If you are using plastic Better Bottle carboys, be damn careful about the temperature of the water you use when rinsing out the remains of the last fermentation. I have destroyed a 3 gallon Better Bottle by adding 180°F water to it. It may be safe to keep using, the experts at the local brewery shop warned me that I’m running a risk if I’m not %100 sure that no bacteria can build up in possible cracks in the bottle. I guess it’s glass carboys from now on, even if they are more expensive and harder to move about.
2. Save your beer bottles. The local store sells beer bottles for bottling, but it’s honestly cheaper in many respects to simply buy a six pack of Fat Tire, drink the beer, and then clean the bottles. I’m using growlers for this batch, simply because they were so much cheaper to buy.
3. Buy a large quantity of both sanitizing solution as well as brewery wash. I have more Star-SAN than I need, but not enough Powered Brewery Wash.

Remember to share your brew – so others will share with you.

I have racked the cider from the primary to my secondary fermenter, and everything went well. I took a little cider out to sample, and while it’s a little harsher than the first batch due to it’s relative youth, it’s a bit sweeter, and already slightly carbonated. I’m going to have to be careful about how and when I bottle – I think I’m going to let it sit with it’s airlock in the secondary for at least three weeks before I bottle.

I did have one major screw-up, though. After I’d racked the cider, I went to clean the Better Bottle I used as a primary vessel – and I forgot the water in the pot was very hot. Not boiling, but hot. And I poured about a gallon of water into the bottle. It instantly started to deform. Doing some looking, I’ve not destroyed a $30 Better Bottle, but it’s going to look ugly for the rest of time. I’m just going to chalk it up to another lesson learned in my journey.

Looks like I’m well past cider-making season, and yet, I put my next batch in to brew on the 3rd of January. It’s a lot easier the second time around, as you know more or less what you are doing, and aren’t stopping to ask Google questions every time you walk back into the room. When do I sanitize? When do I clean? Really, taking the airlock out means cleaning it again? Is Star-San a no-rinse solution? How do I increase alcohol content?

The airlock, at work

So the second time is easier, but in a way, a lot harder: for the first batch, I had gone to Asheville, NC, during apple season, and gotten two gallons of pure, unfiltered, unpasteurized apple cider. $10 a gallon. This time, pure cider is effectively unobtainable. So, I went to the local grocery store and picked up two gallons of “All natural” cider – the only one I could find that only listed Apple Juice as an ingredient. Yes, it’s pasteurized, but it doesn’t have sulfates added for stabilization, it doesn’t have color added, etc. It’s just juice.

So, it’s in the primary. Two weeks or so to go until it’s ready to rack over. I think I’ll try making beer next.

A friend of mine went whole-hog with the pizza post the other day, and sent me his variation on the theme. It’s long, so I’m going to put it after the jump.

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