Racking Cider and some other questions

[timmy]

Hi all,

Over the weekend I racked my (modified) Brigalow Cider batch into my new 30L fermenter. But I'm now concerned that, given the fermentation has basically finished, I will get oxidisation because the CO2 hasn't been able to purge the oxygen. There has been no activity in the airlock (it's properly sealed). Should I just bite the bullet and bottle it?

Also, my hydro samples have shown the brew to be quite dry. I was going to add some lactose into the secondary, but my HBS guy just recommended to use saccharine tablets in the bottles when you want to drink them to adjust the sweetness. Has anyone else tried this?

Last thing - I offered a sip of the hydro sample to the wife and she said it tasted/smelt too much like beer. Is this because of the yeast I used? As a recap, here was my recipe:
-900g Brigalow Kit
-1kg White Sugar
-2L Coles-brand Cloudy Apple juice (with only Vit C added)
-4 peeled & cored granny smiths added in a stocking
-kit yeast

Cheers all,

Tim

[Chris]

People generally think that cider will be sweet, but that is often not the case. Hence the 'tastes like beer' comment.

And I'd go with lactose if you want to sweeten. Saccarine tablets?! Hell no.

[timmy]

I tend to take advice from my HBS guy with a pinch of salt.

Thanks for the advice.

Tim

[Chris]

With this guy, I think that is a very good idea.

[timmy]

Sort of un-related, but I went in there on the weekend to get some supplies and asked for Carapils grains (I pronounced it with the 'P') and he didn't know what I was on about. Thought it a bit strange that you wouldn't recognise a fairly common ingredient when it's pronounced as it's spelt.....

[rwh]

So how do you pronounce it?

[timmy]

Apparently the 'P' is silent or something.

[rwh]

Maybe we should have a pronunciation thingo added to the abbreviations sticky. We could start with:

carapils, pronounced cara-ils
wort, pronounced wert
trub, pronounced troob

Any others?

[Noodles]

Last thing - I offered a sip of the hydro sample to the wife and she said it tasted/smelt too much like beer. Is this because of the yeast I used? As a recap, here was my recipe:
-900g Brigalow Kit
-1kg White Sugar
-2L Coles-brand Cloudy Apple juice (with only Vit C added)
-4 peeled & cored granny smiths added in a stocking
-kit yeast

Cheers all,

Tim

I made nearly the exact same brew and mine turned out very sweet. I used the kit yeast and yeast enhancer. The only difference to your brew is I only used 1 litre of apple juice. Mine also came out at about 7.7%, so my wife waters it down with lemonade (as if it wasn't sweet enough).

Anyway, my point is, i'm surprised your early tastings are dry.

[timmy]

Do you reckon I should bottle given that there is no activity in the airlock at racking stage (I don't want it to get oxidised...)

[Noodles]

I'm not a racker so I can't help you out with that one. My cider took about 3 weeks to settle at a FG of 1006 (started at 1060). I guess if you're sure it's fully fermented and you're worried about the racking side of things, bottle it.

Carbonation will take longer than beer. My stubbies were fully carbonated after 4 weeks, long necks at 7 weeks. Don't know if it's normal for long necks to take longer to carbonate than stubbies, but that's what happened with mine.

[dragonphoenix73]

Hey Timmy,

At what point in the process did you add the whole apples, and how?

Also, what would be the result of using raw sugar or honey instead of the white sugar?

P