Backyard Apple Cider

Ingredients

• 2,5 baskets of apples from our yard, used fresh from the tree.

Pressing

• Total of 5L pressed
• Specific gravity: 1.050 -> estimated 6.5% EtOH after fermentation
• Add 500 mg of pectinase to break down pectines
• 500 mg Campden added for 24h in cooking pot with rag to allow evaporation

One Stop Fermentation

After treatment with campden:

• sanitization recipient, airlock and tools used
• half a tablespoon of yeast nutrients added
• SafCider yeast pitched and waterlock placed

After 2-3 days, an intense Rhino fart smell 👃💩😰 filled the air while CO2 production could be seen. Likely due to a shortage in N-building blocks for the yeast. Raisins could be added but those were not available at the time.

After 4 weeks fermentation, a cold crash was performed by placing the glass jar in the fridge for 24 hours.

Bottling

• sanitization pump and bottles
• priming sugar added (38g brown sugar) for carbonization
• bottles filled by pump, with minimal headspace
• bottles were left for at least a week before carbonization was adequate

Taste

Crisp, acidic taste; but masked by sulphuric smell from primary fermentation. Likely too much inorganic phosphorous added with the yeast supplement.

Recommendations future

• Different, organic yeast nutrition, eg: YDP (yeast extracts)
• Experiment with more flavours
• Experiment with other yeast