In an effort to justify my new interest in home brewing, I offered to make my missus a batch of cider in between beer lots. We put down a cider using a brigalow cider kit, 300g ginger, 2 apples, 2 pears, 4 cinnamon sticks (blended together) and a few cloves (Edit: also added around 3L of berri apple juice and 2.4L of berri apple and pear). Used a Lalvin 1118 champagne yeast and the goop went from 1060 to basically 1000 flat. I left the cider in the primary plastic fermenter for about 2 weeks, and then transferred to my secondary one. There was a really strong smell in the fermenter; couldn't put my finger on it at all, a mix of old fruit and chemicals perhaps? I assumed it was the yeast grub at the bottom of the fermenter and washed it out, only to find that the smell was still there pretty strong. Filled it with some generic brewers santiser and left it overnight, only to find that the smell is STILL there. Have I ruined both of my fermenters somehow?
Incidentally the cider is pretty damn dry, I added 500g lactose because I had some around to hopefully sweeten it up a bit.
Incidentally the cider is pretty damn dry, I added 500g lactose because I had some around to hopefully sweeten it up a bit.