#ciderblr

[aflockofseacows]

Batch 4!

I picked the rest of the astrakan apples today. A little late, I think. The apples have a very short "shelf life" once they're ripe. You only have a couple of weeks to pick them. Many of them cracked after a huge rainstorm a couple weeks ago too.

Pulped them today, resulting in 56 kg of pulp which should give about 25 litres of juice. Since all the fermenters are in use atm, I'll pour the must into 10l bottles, stabilize them and store them for later. I can only fit 19l into each batch, meaning I already have enough apples for 6 litres of Bjor! Anything after this is a bonus.

Turns out, quite a lot of the apples on the west astrakan tree have water core. I found this beauty. I wonder, is this why the single variety cider from that tree was so good last season? I reckon it is.

[aflockofseacows]

2nd batch!

This time about 85% astrakan from the easternmost tree and 15% åkerö apples. Pulped the apples yesterday so all I had to do was press them today. Picked apples for a third batch while I was working as well. I reckon I'll get to that next weekend. Looks like there's enough apples for a fourth batch as well, which I want to try to make Bjor with. A relatively strong slightly sweet cider sweetened with honey and flavoured with meadowsweet.

I'm thinking of stabilising the third batch with chemicals rather than pasteurisation. Supposedly the cider will taste fresher that way.

Ec-1118 again. Sg 1.055

[aflockofseacows]

First tree demalumated. Fewer apples than last year. Makes sense since I've pruned the tree quite a lot and there were a lot of apples in general last year. Hopefully my new press will make up the difference? Estimated around 11L of must if I get a 70% yield.

I've asked around about what type of apples they are, but I can't get a good answer. They could be a hybrid grown from an apple seed.

I also noticed that they tasted better this year. last year, the tree was dropping a lot more of the apples and they were distinctly more sour than these are. They're also bigger this year. again, could be down to the pruning and increased ferilization.'

These produced the best cider last year.

[aflockofseacows]

I was worried about the apple harvest as there were a lot fewer flowers this year. Also fewer bees. I think someone moved whatever beehive was active last year.

My fears were unfounded because there's hella apples. I assume the heavy pruning i did in late winter and the fertilising I did in spring has something to do with it.

[aflockofseacows]

First apple tree is ripe... First two actually. Although not entirely convinced about the second tree. It is on...

Finished building my new cider press this week. Using the barrel from the one I had and made gear to use it with my hydraulic press for maximum apple-de-juicing.

Not finished the shredder, which is a LITTLE important. I might need to work on it over the weekend. Found a motor that will work wonders.

[aflockofseacows]

I never shared how the carbonation of the cider went. It went well!

[aflockofseacows]

cronched, squoze, pasteurized and yeasted them. I'll know how it went in a couple of weeks! I'm brewing the apple types separately this time around, so I know how they taste on their own. Science!

boom harvested the small apple tree.

[aflockofseacows]

Despite following the guides, 24h was not enough time to degas! (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ My working theory is that these fermenters are narrow, meaning it will degas slower due to the reduced surface area.

Fuck, that's a packet of yeast wasted and I need to order more now Y.Y

I'll give it another 24 hours and try again...

Surprised myself by doing batch 3 today.

19 litres of unpasteurized must this time. I have stabilised it with chemicals instead. I want to see if it's true that the cider tastes different when it hasn't been heated up and if it does, is it better?

The apples are a random mix of astrakan from both trees and åkerø.

Fun observation: the must has lightened considerably since I added the chemicals. it has gone from almost a walnutty color to this golden one. Even the bits of pulp in the must have turned from the usual brown to white. Almost like it's been deoxidised.

It will sit for 24 hours for the chemicals to gas off enough so that the yeast I add will survive.

[aflockofseacows]

Took a bit of fiddling to get used to the new gear. A lot of fiddling, actually, but I've got it working pretty good now. I'm getting about 50% yield from the press, which is less that I had hoped, but the apple mass after pressing is fairly dry, so it must be working great! I wonder if grinding the apples into a finer pulp could improve the yield even more? I've seen people using compost shredders to great effect. something to think about for next year.

Also? Cheese cloth? Heck that fucking noise! The stuff clogs up and makes it very hard to press the apples. The coarser net that the press originally came with works a lot better.

19 litres of goodness cooling down before I add the extra sugar and yeast. This first batch is about 50% Sävstaholm, 40% Åkerö and 20% Astrakan apples. All the batches this year will be mixed. Last year I fermented them all separately so I could figure out if any of them tasted bad. They didn't, so I'm not paying attention to that this year.

Oh yeah, forgot to say, I've identified the last tree! Sävstaholm. I'm fairly certain that I've identified all the apples now. I've ground up another 40+kg of apples for a 2nd batch tomorrow.

First tree demalumated. Fewer apples than last year. Makes sense since I've pruned the tree quite a lot and there were a lot of apples in general last year. Hopefully my new press will make up the difference? Estimated around 11L of must if I get a 70% yield.

I've asked around about what type of apples they are, but I can't get a good answer. They could be a hybrid grown from an apple seed.

I also noticed that they tasted better this year. last year, the tree was dropping a lot more of the apples and they were distinctly more sour than these are. They're also bigger this year. again, could be down to the pruning and increased ferilization.'

These produced the best cider last year.

[aflockofseacows]

I put it in a tub because that's not a lot of headspace xD things might get messy! I kinda forgot that sugar has volume too. Though, the pressure is meant to reduce foaming/krausen by a lot. The gooseberry wine had none.

EC-1118 yeast, for future reference. A yeast the internet fights about a lot. It's either the best yeast ever or the worst yeast in existence depending on who you ask.

First tree demalumated. Fewer apples than last year. Makes sense since I've pruned the tree quite a lot and there were a lot of apples in general last year. Hopefully my new press will make up the difference? Estimated around 11L of must if I get a 70% yield.

I've asked around about what type of apples they are, but I can't get a good answer. They could be a hybrid grown from an apple seed.

I also noticed that they tasted better this year. last year, the tree was dropping a lot more of the apples and they were distinctly more sour than these are. They're also bigger this year. again, could be down to the pruning and increased ferilization.'

These produced the best cider last year.