58 replies to this topic

[Genesee Ted]

I have several wild fermented ciders in my cellar and they continually impress me with their quality. You will not be disappointed.

[EWW]

I have several wild fermented ciders in my cellar and they continually impress me with their quality. You will not be disappointed.

Let's hope so. I only did 5 gallons wild since the year before my buddy made 5 gallons of vinegar from the same press when he tried to do a wild ferment. I wasn't willing to risk having 15 gallons of apple cider vinegar this year. I am disappointed in the WLP cider yeast. It threw a ton of SO2 and didn't ferment to dryness for some reason. I was able to get rid of most the SO2. Adding the bugs should ferment it out the rest of the way and I'm hoping that it will also drive off the little bit of SO2 that remains. The sulphited batch I pitched Nottingham into is real nice this early on. I hope not to touch these ciders till October at the very least.

[EWW]

Funny you bumped this thread. I was pouring at an event at Redhook today and took a wrong turn somewhere along the way and just happened to run into a cider mill that was pressing some pink ladies this morning so I HAD to pick up 5 gallons. They had an awesome old pressnow I just need to decide between another straight cider or if I should mix up another cyser...it's a tough life

[EWW]

What does Redhook do with cider? I thought they only did beer, and non of their beers have apples, AFAIK.I want a press like that.

Redhook doen't do anything with cider. I went up there to pour at Exbeerience. On my way up there I took a wrong turn and found A liitle place called Minea farm.no clue where you'd find a press like this, but you should have room for one on your new estate. So when are you going to plant your orchard?

[positiveContact]

mmmmm - cider.

[EWW]

After 6 months on lees I transfered the naturally fermented cider to keg...so tasty...wish I would have done the other 10 gallons this way. Tastes as if I had some malolactic fermentation. Much less sharp then the so2 baches. The proof is in the pic. Prost!

[strangebrewer]

After 6 months on lees I transfered the naturally fermented cider to keg...so tasty...wish I would have done the other 10 gallons this way. Tastes as if I had some malolactic fermentation. Much less sharp then the so2 baches. The proof is in the pic. Prost!

Beautiful! My wild ferment cider looks similar. Crystal clear and easy to drink by the mug full. I didn't check mine either but I wouldn't doubt that it went through a MLF naturally. My cider is 100% jonagold apples. I'm not sure how much malic they have in them to start. Might have to go buy one, smash it up, and get out the chromatography gear.

[EWW]

Beautiful! My wild ferment cider looks similar. Crystal clear and easy to drink by the mug full. I didn't check mine either but I wouldn't doubt that it went through a MLF naturally. My cider is 100% jonagold apples. I'm not sure how much malic they have in them to start. Might have to go buy one, smash it up, and get out the chromatography gear.

I posted a link last fall that had info on the Malic acid content of Jonagolds...if I can find it I'll bump it to the top for you.* wishes he had some chromatography gear*

Edited by EWW, 02 May 2011 - 07:23 AM.

[EWW]

According to page 7 of This jonagolds are relatively low in malic acid.

here you go

[EWW]

...we're starting to plan the second epic apple press, and with all the interest we're getting we may be getting around 4000 lbs of apples this year.

[EWW]

I'm planning on loading up on apples and doing my own. I might do quite a bit, don't know the price per pound of apples yet.

We get them for <10 cents/pound

[Mya]

We get them for <10 cents/pound

seconds from one of the co-ops in Yakima or Wenatchee?

[EWW]

Yakima

[Mya]

Yakima

that's an epic price manare you gonna try a more tart apple in the mix this year?

[EWW]

that's an epic price manare you gonna try a more tart apple in the mix this year?

The guy we get them from is a homebrewer so he cuts us a deal.I really wish we had more of a selection, but there just aren't many acres of traditional cider apples planted. I'd love to do a mix of jonagold, gravenstein, and crab, but finding 500-1k pounds of good crab apples is tough. We'll probably end up using jonagolds again.

[MtnBrewer]

The guy we get them from is a homebrewer so he cuts us a deal.I really wish we had more of a selection, but there just aren't many acres of traditional cider apples planted. I'd love to do a mix of jonagold, gravenstein, and crab, but finding 500-1k pounds of good crab apples is tough. We'll probably end up using jonagolds again.

You're welcome to come harvest all the crab apples you want from the trees out in front of my house. They're starting to ripen so hurry.

[EWW]

Sounds like we are going to go with 2 tons of honeycrisps this year. Anyone have experience with these? Their acid profile is similar to jonagolds and they fit our time table better. The press will be the last Saturday of this month. Should be fun. Apple prices are up a bit this year, but we're still looking at around $3/gallon when we figure in gas and apple costs.

[Mya]

they are a wonderful eating apple, never tried fermenting them, but they make a nice pie, so it's should be nice

[dmtaylor]

The Honeycrisp apples are easy to juice -- they have lots of juice and the pulp comes out relatively dry, not like some other apples such as Delicious or Cortland or the old English russets that taste good but can come out mushy or downright slimy. I think the Honeycrisp cider tastes very good as well. Might be expensive though, and perhaps insipid to some palates. Add a little acid in some form or another to balance the high sweetness. I recently juiced just over a bushel (total) of about a dozen different kinds of apples, including many tart varieties and bitter crabs, ended up with 2.5 gallons of the homepressed stuff, and added to it a little unpasteurized stuff from the local orchard. I've had all of it fermenting away for the past ~8 days with a couple different yeasts. Actually the Cote des Blancs is already almost done so I racked it and threw in some Brett B for good measure. Trying to make something like a Gaymers or a Crispin English Dry (both very good -- try some if you can find it). My sweeter batch started with Nottingham ale yeast, which was still apparently dead after 36 hours so I added US-05 and now it is coming along nicely -- has sort of a honey-like flavor. Should be interesting to run some yeast experiments this year and get a better idea of what I like best for future years. I don't think I'll bother with Nottingham anymore, for beers or for ciders.