Cider - brew 4

My mead has been in the primary fermenter for almost a month and I 

can't wait to start the cider, so I bought a second primary fermenter and I'm going to start the cider before the mead finishes.

I just got another Coopers kit which is $89 (AU) at k-mart.

I'm guessing that the cider will finish primary fermentation before the mead does, as apple juice is mostly simple sugars, compared to honey.

This cider is the same recipe as the mead, but more apple juice and less honey.

Honey is to provide complex sugars for the yeast to digest at later stages of fermentation; which should provide more depth of flavour.

Ingredients

Lavlin ec 1118 yeast 5g 

11 x 2 Litre Apple juice from aldi, no preservatives: reconstituted apple juice 99%, acidity regulator 330, flavour, vitamin C. $1 per litre

2 x 700g bramwells mixed blossom honey.$0.53 per 100g

overall cost

$29.7/24L -> $1.2 per litre

commercial cider is around $7.5 per litre

Brewing

I heated up 8 litres of apple juice to around 50-60 degrees and poured it int. the fermenter. I then poured warmed up honey into the fermenter. Then added the rest of the apple juice that is at room temperature. I took an Original Gravity measurement before
rehydrating the yeast, according to the packet, which I then added to the must.

I put the fermenter on a stool with a heat mat under the fermenter, covering the whole thing with a blanket, as it's a very cold winter. 

Secific Gravity Measurements

OG 

13/7/2013 60 at 26 degrees

SG
14/7/2013 58 at 18 degrees
Tastes Like cloudy apple juice that has been carbonated, no alcohol taste yet. 

15/7/2013 49 at 18 degrees

16/7/2013 44 at 18 degrees 

18/7/2013 31 at 18 degrees 

19/7/2013 25 at 18 degrees

21/7/2013 16 at 14 degrees

22/7/2013 18 at 14 degrees

23/7/2013 15 at 14 degrees

25/7/2013 11 at 14 degrees

26/7/2013 9 at 15 degrees

28/7/2013 6 at 16 degrees

Cloudy apple cider taste, quite dry and medium sour. 

29/7/2013 4 at 18 degrees

31/7/2013 4 at 15 degrees

3/7/2013 0 at 13 degrees

Bottled 3/7/2013

Final Gravity 0

calculated ABV 8.0%

It's turned out really dry and very strong alcohol wise. It's both cloudy and sour, which I like. Back sweetening with cordial makes it a very pleasant drink.  My favorite mix is with the rhubarb cordial from ikea. A cheaper but still delicious option is cascade rasberry cordial. 

I'm very happy with this brew, and I'll be making many more like it.

Mead - brew 3

This is my first mead and I'm hoping to make it a sweet one.

I'm not adding any spices or flavouring to the main fermenter, but I might flavour each secondary fermenter with different flavours. If it turns out too dry, I'll back sweeten with some pure honey.

I wasn't sure what honey I wanted to use, so I bought a sample of pretty much every honey I could find.

I wanted something affordable, but with an interesting flavour.

I really liked the bluegum based honey, but it was pretty expensive per 100g (unit pricing is awesome).

I ended up deciding on bramwell's mixed blossom honey from aldi. It's sweet, but has interesting floral flavours and nice complexiy.

I'd really like to do a small batch of the just the blue gum honey at a later date.

Equipment

Coopers brew DIY beer kit
Bucket
thermometer
kettle
heat mat
stool (oddvar from ikea)
towelles

Ingredients

Lavlin ec 1118 yeast 5g
2.5kg capilano honey
6 x 700g bramwells mixed blossom aldi
400g beechworth tasmanian leatherwood
500g bramwells pure Australian honet aldi
400g bramwells yellowbox
400g bramwells blue gum
500g coles pure Australian honey

9kg total honey
2L aldi apple juice

2-3 litres of boiling water to mix up the honey and bring the wort up to temperature, around 25 degrees

25 litres Total

Total cost
$75 / 25 L -> $3 per litre
Commercial mead is around $20 per litre 

Apple juice is to help start the yeast culture build, with easy to digest, simple sugars. 

Mixing

Put jars of honey into a bath of hot water to warm and help honey to pour. 

Put boiling water into the fermenter, pour in honey and stir. added apple juice, added cold water until reached 25 ltites, and about 30 degrees. stirred wort up.

took Original Gravity measurement

started yeast rehydration, with 30mls hot water, checking the temperature with a thermometer from target.

added yeast to fermenter

put heat mat on stool, put fermenter on heat mat, put towelles around fermenter (it's about 9 degrees C  ambient temp at the moment!)

Specific Gravity Measurements

OG
16/6/2013 Guess 120 off scale

SG
19/6/2013 112 on scale
20/6/2013 110 at 20 degrees
21/6/2013 110 at 18 degrees

tastes of honey water and cider
22/6/2013 108 at 20 degrees
23/6/2013 106 19 degrees 

agitated fermenter by shaking it
24/6/2013 92 at 18 degrees
25/6/2013 91 at 21 degrees
26/6/2013 87 at 21 degrees
26/6/2013 83 at 22 degrees

tastes of mead, honey water, cider and butter
30/6/2013 78 at 22 degrees
1/7/2013 75 at 23 degrees
3/7/2013 71 at 24 degrees
5/7/2013 61 at 21 degrees

 tastes like a layer of vodka is sitting on the top :S
10/7/2013 60 at 19 degrees 

starting to taste like mead mixed in with honey water, starting to lose cider taste

agitated fermenter by shaking it
12/7/2013 49 at 22 degrees 

massive drop in SG, tastes much more like mead, vodka taste has gone, but it's still quite strong tasting.
This is taking a while .... ( almost a month in primary fermentation)

14/7/2013 39 at 25 degrees 

Strong Alcohol Weak mead Flavour 

15/7/2013 35 at 24 degrees

18/7/2013 31 at 24 degrees

19/7/2013 28 at 22 degrees

21/7/2013 31 at 18 degrees

22/7/2013 26 at 18 degrees

23/7/2013 25 ar 18 degrees

25/7/2013 25 at 19 degrees

26/7/2013 23 at 21 degrees

28/7/2013 21 at 20 degrees

Dry and sour, some carbonation, mead like flavour, but not mead yet. 

29/7/2013 19 at 24 degrees

31/7/2013 19 at 20 degrees

3/7/2013 16 at 18 degrees

4/7/2013 15 at 18 degrees 

6/7/2013 13 at 18 degrees 

8/7/2013 13 at 18 degrees

9/7/2013 12 at 18 degrees

10/7/2013 11 at 17 degrees

11/7/2013 10 at 17 degrees

12/7/2013 9 at 17 degrees

14/7/2013 7 at 22 degrees 

15/7/2013 7 at 22 degrees

16/7/2013 7 at 23 

17/7/2013 7 at 24 degrees

Bottled 17/7/2013

final abv 16.6%

Pilsner - brew 2

Thomas coopers brewmaster pilsner

My second bew, which I started pretty much the second that the lager was bottled.

I really should have waited to taste the lager first, as I made the same mistakes with this brew; namely squeezing the bottles during the capping.

Coopers plastic bottles

Thomas coopers brewmaster pilsner
Yeast 16712 P
can best before 21/6/
brew 27/5/2013
dextrose 300g
light dry malt 500g
temp of wort 23 degrees
OG 36 27/5/2013
23 29/5/2013
14 30/5/2013
11  31/5/2013
8 1/6/2013
7 2/6/2013
6 3/6/2013
7 4/6/2013
5 5/6/2013
5 6/6/2013
5 8/6/2013
Bottled 8/6/2013

Bitter and sour tastes, flat because of squeezing the bottles again, I think.
2 weeks later, still not very drinkable.

After another few weeks, some of the bottles are actually drinkable, being clean tasting without the sourness they had before.

Most bottles are still too flat, but they're developing a small amount of head.

I've put aside a few bottles to taste in a few months along with the lager.

Lager - brew 1

This is my first brew in about 10 years.

The last few didn't work out very well, so I'm going to start out from scratch.

I generally like both clean style beers and ciders, but I also like darker more complex beers.

I'm going to focus on clean clearer style drinks to start with.

I'm just going to follow the instructions as is, without any variation.

Coopers basic kit
Coopers plastic bottles

Brew 11/5/2013
22 degrees added yeast
Bottled 25/5/2013
Og 42
Fg 14

Percentage 3.7% ABV

bottled
labelled with a dymo label maker

Initially Sour taste, went after the first week.
Only grolsch bottles held any head at all.
Probably because we squeezed the plastic bottles before capping; I won't do that again. 

After 3 to 4 weeks weeks bottled, some bottles are pretty sour tasting, some have a nice subtle caramel finish to them. Most of them are drinkable, but none of them are very fizzy.

I've left a few bottles aside to taste in a couple of months time.