The secondary fermentation never really happened on these batches: Once I racked them into the secondary vessels, the fermentation stopped. Before adding the apple juice to top off the gallon jars (as described in this previous post), the SG measured ~1.000, for an estimated ABV of 6.7%. Maybe this was too much for this yeast, or maybe it just stopped when I racked it off. Not sure. Before bottling, I measured the SG and it was ~1.010, so there is still plenty of sugars to ferment. Now we'll see if we get any carbonation.
On the plus side, the cider tasted awesome, as was. I had ~6oz left from each gallon after bottling 10 bottles from each, and I consider it a fine cider, at room temperature, no aging, and still. Nice amount of fruit, a little tart, and not at all sweet. Very exciting! Now we'll just sit and wait to see what 5 weeks does to it. It will be interesting to see if the tartness mellows out.
As for the differences between the two, batch #5 (with the raisins) had the best overall flavor, with batch #4 being a little more tart.
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