Cider Questions

[uneekwahn]

Greetings all,

I threw down a cider last sunday (30/11/08) for the mrs. It had 14ltrs of apple juice and 8ltrs of apple/pear, both of the just juice no preservative kind. I took the zest of two lemons, a cinnamon quill and 3 cloves which I boiled in 2ltrs of the apple/pear juice which I threw in to around 8ltrs of room temperature juice, then added another couple of litres just to make sure it wasn't too hot. I then pitched my yeast which was from a chambly bottle which had happily been eating some honey for a week prior to being pitched, and then I added the remaining juice from a height for aeration.

the og was 1044.

most of the rest of sunday it didn't do much, but come monday morning it took off and bubbled for about every 3 seconds until wednesday where it dropped down to about every 15 seconds, so I gave the bucket a swirl and it picked up to around every 7 seconds and I just let it do its thing the rest of the time.

so, og was 1044, monday was 1040, tuesday was 1024, wednesday was 1014, thursday 1014, friday 1012 and now we come to today. there has been hardly any action from the airlock as far as I can tell (I was out gardening most of the day) and I've just checked 3 seperate samples and each one gives me a reading of 1002/1004 (we'll split it and call it 1003).

the cider has developed a very noticeable tartness and has also lost most of the carbonation it had sunday to thursday.

it's been kept on the top of the washing machine and the sticky thermometer has kept on 24/26 the whole week it's been sitting there.

any suggestions as to why the sudden drop with no real action and the development of a tart flavour?

cheers,

jason.

 

[newguy]

I can't explain the sudden drop in gravity, but the tartness is from the pears. I've made perry twice now and it's so tart it literally puckers your mouth.

If the cider continues to smell like apples/pears and the spices you added, it's probably okay. If it picks up any off odours - really rank/disgusting - it could be infected. It's likely fine, though.

 

[drsmurto]

Have made a few ciders using preservative free juice. Normally only apple but did one that used some apple/pear juice.

Agree with newguy, the tartness is primarily from the pear juice but with a FG closing in on 1 you are going to have a dry cider which comes across slightly tart to my taste.

Cider is traditional slow fermented, lower temps so your hot and fast ferment will also likely throw up some extra flavours.

For your next cider i recommend Wyeast 4766 fermented at the lower end of the range. I left mine in rpimary for 4 weeks at 14C and IMO it is better for it.