I cannot find my notes from my first batch of cider. It looks like I did an update from the train and it failed during upload and I lost everything after the first paragraph. This makes me sad. It turned out to be pretty decent cider.
This batch has a couple of things different: Its a kit again,but from Black Rock homebrew in new Zealand. The mix seemed thicker and more aromatic than the John Bull mix I used for the first batch. (I’ll have to try and recreate that entry. ) Plus I’m adding in some apple juice from actual apples I gathered from my Father in Law’s back yard. I used the juicer setting on my blender to get a juicy pulp of about 16 ounces and added that right into the batch.
Its a week or more on and I can barely detect yeast activity. The wife has kindly allowed me to stow it under the stair and so far there’s been little sign of fermentation. I was just linking the directions from the Black ROck website for you to compare with my previous efforts and saw something I didn’t know about: The yeast packets came in 3 sachets. I only added one. I will drag the fermentation unit from under the stair and add in the other packets.
http://www.blackrock.co.nz/brew-kits/item/31-apple-cider
I THINK I had to do the same with the first kit. I’m still a bit bothered by using concentrate but I have to admit its less messy than 8 bottles of apple juice. I don’t do this to save money but people always ask me how much it cost to make. So roughly this can of concentrate (with yeast) cost 18£, 4 more for the sugar. Water free and I already had the fermentation unit. That gets you in at slightly less than 1£ per liter.
In another radical change I’m going to use collapsible water bottles to ferment half of this in, I found them at the pound store (ala dollar store) and the one I tested didn’t leak. I will trust a third of my cider output to it. Barring any deep freezing it should be ‘bottled’ in early November. drinkable in January. Better in Feb.
