Hard Cider – Batch 17 – Bottled and Kegged – August 2010

With fall very rapidly approaching, its time to start moving the 2009 hard cider inventory from the fermentor into a more consumable form (bottles and kegs). So the first batch on the production schedule is batch number 17, which used the Red Star Premier Cuvee yeast. The main reason for picking this batch, was that the grommet for the airlock broke in half (pic below) right before I left for Michigan two weekends ago. So I had to make an emergency fix with some Scotch tape to keep a somewhat airtight seal. Suprisingly the tape formed a good enough seal around the airlock, that it gave me enough time this week to clean out my last empty keg.

Here are the final stats for this batch:
OG 1.050
FG 1.000 (as of 08/17/2010)
ABW 5.0%
ABV 6.3%

Fermenting start date: 09/19/2009
Bottle/Keg date: 08/17/2010

Side Notes:
1) For some reason the first taste that I had of this cider, straight from the fermentor, had the smell/taste that bordered on a grappa, which was kind of strange. But the hard cider also had a bit of an acidic start with a heavy alchol finish. But after letting the cider sit out for about 30 minutes to breath, it really mellowed out the acid/alcohol flavors, and become much more drinkable. I’ll ratonalize this oxidation transformation, with the fact that this cider has been sitting in an oxygen free enviroment for the last 11 months.
2) For having waited close to a year, it was nice to finally enjoy the fruits of my labor, and I have to say that it was worth the wait. Its a bit on the dry side, but not too dry. And since I haven’t used dry yeast in a very long time (and I’ve never used wine yeast before), I’m pretty happy with the final results.

One comment on “Hard Cider – Batch 17 – Bottled and Kegged – August 2010”

  • nursing schools says:

    Great information! I’ve been looking for something like this for a while now. Thanks!

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