BeerBorg

I decided to brew up a batch of hard cider today. I watched this video the other day and got inspired.


Here's all the ingredients.


I boiled up the raisins with a packed cup of brown sugar.


Strained the raisins, so only the sugar water and "raisin juice" was transferred to the fermenter.


Let the party begin.

Looks good.

I'll be making a trip to the local apple orchard to get apples to make apple sauce and I was thinking about getting some of their cider to turn in to hard cider.

duff wrote:Looks good.

I'll be making a trip to the local apple orchard to get apples to make apple sauce and I was thinking about getting some of their cider to turn in to hard cider.

Thanks. It looks healthy. The airlock is bubbling at a good pace

You inspired me! Was at whole foods today and grabbed a jug of apple juice...

ssorck wrote:You inspired me! Was at whole foods today and grabbed a jug of apple juice...

Great. This first gallon is still bubbling the airlock nicely, so I'm going to let it sit a while longer. I've got another gallon from Whole Foods and a gallon I picked up from BJ's.

Well she's done and in the basement. This will be an interesting experiment!

Thanks for the post as I keep forgetting to pick up some cider myself. Might have to try that with some apple pie or pumpkin pie spices mixed in with the raisins.

Shes bubbling away like mad! The smell out of the airlock - well lets just say fermenting beer smells better...

ssorck wrote:Shes bubbling away like mad! The smell out of the airlock - well lets just say fermenting beer smells better...

So you got some rhino farts Next time add some yeast nutrient - stressed yeast tends to produce a lot of sulphur.

russki wrote:

ssorck wrote:Shes bubbling away like mad! The smell out of the airlock - well lets just say fermenting beer smells better...

So you got some rhino farts Next time add some yeast nutrient - stressed yeast tends to produce a lot of sulphur.

I did add nutrient! Still stinko city!

I used apple juice and I think it was champagne yeast, whichever came with my Mr. Rootbeer kit. Doesn't smell bad at all, has an apple smell.

The first gallon of hard cider will be racked to a secondary this evening. I now have a second gallon of Apple cider going. For this one, I removed 2 cups of apple juice and added 1 container of Apple juice concentrate to boost the abv. I also added 1tsp of yeast nutrient. OG was 1.062. The airlock is bubbling like mad on the second one.

Racked to secondary. It tasted pretty good, a dry wine with an strong apple aroma. I'll bottle it this weekend. Those were some happy yeast.

I made some more hard apple cider on Monday. This time I removed 3 cups of apple juice and added 12oz. of frozen (thawed) apple juice concentrate and 1 very firmly packed cup of brown sugar. OG was about 1.074 so I decided to add 2 tsp of yeast nutrient. I don't know how well this Mr Beer yeast will tolerate high alcohol, but we're gonna find out.

Woke up this morning to find cider bubbling up into the airlock. Happy yeast and good problems. I've never seen any of my brews bubble so much. Looking into the carboy, it looks like I poured a carbonated beverage in there. This one has freeze concentration potential.

Those are the same 1-gallon carboys I have. They were rescued old/used jugs of natural cider. Thanks for the pron, I love it!