Yes, its March 17th and boy am I tired! (sorry about the tiny font!)

I’ve been working since before noon to prepare a batch of cider -TWO batches in fact– and have just sat down at 6:42pm in order to allow the yeast to start its magic and to make a few notes.
Part of that time was a mad rush to Quality Brewing supplies in Elkhart to get the all important yeast and to grab some more dark blue Grolsh bottles. I am 3 shy of my full complement of 12 bottles, two of which are still in the fridge with last September’s batch in them.  I hesitated to drink them without having some  more brewing.  And I grabbed a siphoning wand and tested it with the sodium bisulfite used to sterilize bottles.  It works great! I probably spilt a full bottle’s worth each time I decanted (what was the correct word?) cider from primary fermentation to those bottles and the fact that it was fizzy and sticky and sweet didn’t make it any easier.  All my previous cider bottling endeavors ended with a shower and a good scrub of the floor. Its what drove me to experiment with allowing the secondary fermentation to take place in a single large carboy instead of in the bottles.  Well that and the fact that bottles were exploding all over the place.  I found several pieces still in the mini fridge where they had stuck in the freezer compartment during the winter and it wasn’t until I defrosted it and brought it to Willis that I was able to give it a good cleaning and discover just how strong those explosions were.
SO there’ll be two batches started today owing in part to that successful experiment. I’m tempted to make both batches ‘still’ but I’ve already invested in 24 bottles, I guess I’d best use them.
It didn’t hurt that Martins had their apple juice on sale. (Not Spartan brand, their own brand) that says “Ingredients: Apples.”  The two versions will hereafter referred to as “Batch A” and “Batch B.”
I make it out to cost $4.50 a gallon for the juice which is oddly a few cents cheaper than the Aldi brand I’ve been using which was a blend of apple juices from concentrate — part of which came from Chile and part from somewhere in the Med. It made good cider but I wanted to see if I could improve this batch by improving the apple juice.  JJ is very selective in which apple juice she’ll drink and this is one of two brands that she will tolerate in the house. I guess that’s good enough for me. 🙂 The other if you’re wondering is “Indian Summer” and its about 50 cents a bottle more than this was.
I’ve put 6 bottles of juice into two fermentation carboys (read 3 gallon water bottles) which brings the level of pure juice right up to where the handle ends. The yeast starter will add a few cups to that as I’ll split the same half bottle of juice and sugar concentrate into each.  I want to prepare both methods as closely as possible and see what I get out at the end. One bottle will have a fermentation lock (I KNEW I forgot something while I was at Quality!) and the other I’ll just seal with its regular lid and ‘gas off’ whenever it looks to need it.
At the same time as the addition of the yeast I’ll be adding 2 cups of ultra fine sugar (also bought at Quality) I think its labeled ‘fructose’ and is that really fine looking stuff like confectioner’s sugar only without the corn starch additive.
The Initial fermentation will take about a week so I’ll report back next Sunday on the transfer of Batch A into bottles– remind me to measure the honey I’m adding at that point too.
One thing I found with the still cider is that when I added the honey ‘for flavor’ it restarted the fermentation process. I ended up with VERY slightly fizzy cider that was Very Dry.  And Very Drinkable. I know why too! I hesitated at adding the sodium Bisulfite to the carboy to stop the fermentation process as was recommended because someone on the forums said it would affect the taste. NOT adding it affected the taste too, giving the overall alcohol level a boost and adding that light bubbly effect that I was sure I’d miss. I know from drinking still cider in England that fizz isn’t necessary or even all that desirable in a farmhouse scrumpy.  I’m just wimpy that way I guess. I’ll do it this time though and see how it goes. I feel my cider-making efforts are a success but it could be better and that’s what I’m working towards.  As the guy says in the pizza commercial: “Better ingredients make better Pizza.”  Just insert Cider… mmmmn, did I tell you how good pizza is with a cold glass of cider??
But I digress…
Another difference is that Batch A will go into bottles after that week of fermentation with 1 tablespoon of honey in each, and Batch B will go into a second carboy for two months before being bottled. Both batches will be on schedule for drinking on June 15th…July 15th if I can hold out.  I’m happy to say that I’ll have at least one more batch brewing by then and overlapping with this one. The next one I do will have some freshly pressed apple pulp in it. So I’d better get started on an apple juicer this summer (Doyle I’m looking at you!) If the double production works I’ll expand again to 5 gallons of each. That would pretty much be my upper limit without the hobby taking over my life.
For earlier batches I did some math to show how economical cider making is but now I’m just doing it cause I like the result.

“Such fun!”