Recent content by Gop

I made a batch once and every single one either blew up or blew it's cap and shot cider 12' in the air. This was after adding 1/2 a tsp of sugar in an attempt to get some sparkle in the cider. After that debacle I now tip Coles apple juice, 1kg brown sugar, a cinammon stick and a few cloves...

I made another batch of this but no orange and about twice the honey. I left it for about 3 months and it was quite clear, though not fully since our bees make "town honey" a dark honey which occurs as the bees visit all different flowers. Anyway, the mead tastes great but it's about 14% or...

To me this looks basically ok, but you may need to add sugar to get more alcohol. Typically apple juice seems to come out about 4%ish depending on the juice. If you're feeling adventurous add a kilo of white sugar. I personally add 1-2 kilos of white and maybe 1/2 of brown but it depends on...

Oak was really just an example. I wanted to move the brew from the primary fermenter, straight into a secondary storage place (eg. cask). It doesn't have to be oak or anything in particular. I suppose a stainless steel keg would be better to avoid taste changes? The point was that I read...

Hi. I've been making my brews (mead and cider) in a 20ish litre plastic linda beer keg, and a few weeks after it stopped bubbling, putting it straight into bottles and leaving those to mature. So far the results have been acceptable (I prefer dry cider and don't care if it's got bubbles or...

I prefer cider that isn't carbed, I like the ye olde feel and taste of a simple cider.

Isn't it great that we can buy nearly any kind of yeast we want now. But there are still a lot of other variables that keep the process interesting!

I'd have a go at it. Just let it's SG get as low as possible. Consider leaving it for up to 3 months and it should have aged nicely.

I hear ya loud n clear. But I wonder if it's better than wild yeasts. In ye olde times they must have used either wild yeast or whatever they could get?

My brother was making cider and said he used about 10g of bread yeast. I suppose it would work. Has anyone had experience with using bread yeast? He basically loaded the fermenter with 20l apple juice, a kilo of brown sugar and a cinammon stick, to which he added the dry bread yeast. It's...

I've got 2 x 20 litre beer fermenters, they are plastic with screw off tops. I was thinking of making some cider, but didn't want to make 20l since I'm pretty new to this and didn't want to throw a lot of $ into vinegar. Will say, 10l of cider brew ok in a 20l tank, or am I better off...