Weekend Cider Update: Mistakes Were Made. Plus Saké!

Here's a one sentence update on my cider making project: It went good, then it went bad.

A few technical items before we get to the fuckery:

1) I added a 1/2 teaspoon of Pectin enzyme that helps make the cider less cloudy to the juice about 1 1/2 weeks in.

As a natural wine nerd I have nothing against cloudy drink but it became pretty apparent that, if left untreated, the final product was going to be downright murky. Not exactly what you want when you're trying to convince people that your weird homemade cider is not a horrible tasting neurotoxin. Plus, pectinase helps free up some extra sugar and thus a bit more alcohol, which is nice.

2) The fermentation took 3 weeks, about 1 week longer than I was planning. This is actually good because a long, cool fermentation produces less headache inducing elements than when it goes warm and fast.

3) The end result was nice. Not super apple-y but clean with a crisp, white wine mineral mouthfeel and finish. In all honesty, surprisingly good! I'm picking up 3 more gallons tomorrow when we head to the store.

What would I change? Well, I'd like to add a pound of sugar per gallon to get a bit more alcohol. the apples up here are well suited to good tasting cider, it turns out, but they don't have much sugar. I'd guess that my first attempt was around 3-4% where most cider is around a beer-like 5-6% and the lack of alcohol makes the mouthfeel slightly off compared to quality commercial dry ciders.

Johnny Appleseed, real estate speculator, gentrified eastern waterways by planting fucking apple trees.

So, what did I fuck up?

In the actual MAKING of the cider, nothing. It couldn't have gone better. I was fully expecting that I was going to end up with murky turd-water or a marginally drinkable cider that had more in common with kombucha than Crispin. Anyway, where I failed was in assuming that champagne style bottles took regular American-sized bottle caps. Spoiler alert: They Do Not. I found this out by tearing the glass lip off the top of my first bottle, completely grenading my heavy duty capper thingie and spraying my kitchen with shattered glass. It was a real donkey fuck and now I have blue painters tape over the top of all my bottles as I wait for my 29mm caps, new capper and 29mm capping bell to arrive. Lesson learned: do not assume anything when it comes to cheese eating Euro equipment. 

Anyhow, my first fermentation project, all technical issues aside, was a success which has won me enough proof-of-concept brownie points to order a big-assed brew bucket in which I plan on making a pilot batch of Nigori Saké with some organic sweet rice from the hippy bulk aisle, some Koji from the internet and the same champagne yeast I used for the cider.

Warning: Sake ahead.

 Don't worry, rice wine is much more complicated than cider making and there will be MANY more entertaining opportunities for me to completely dick it up along the way. Have a great weekend.