It’s Alive!!

We have lift-off, fermentationally speaking!

Today, after purchasing all the stuff to move to cider Plan B, I came home to find bubbles – teeny, tiny, fine little bubbles – gently rising in the cider.

Still no airlock activity though … that is, until I pulled the plastic bit out of the stopper to have a sniff (no off odours) and pushed it back in again – seems it was now seated a bit more firmly than it had been and slowly, over the course of the evening, things began to move!

I guess all that was needed was some time, patience (not one of my strong points) and a tighter airlock. I really don’t think it was producing gas until quite recently though. Further research indicates it can take as long as a week or more. This would have been very helpful to have read a week ago.

In any case, I’m now seeing an airlock blurp about every three minutes – a beautiful sight!

And to think that last night I though it might be time to dump the batch. Good thing it so often takes me a while to get ’round to things!

The best-laid plans …

Hmmm, methinks me cider is done. And not in a good way. It’s dead.

It’s a puzzle to me, not to mention a huge disappointment, and I’m now thinking that perhaps the problem lies with the stuff I used to sanitize the demi-john.

I had planned to use iodophor, having read that it doesn’t leave a residue and is not problematic if you fail to rinse it all off but the guy at the store said I should use something else – diversol – instead. So I did.

Maybe I didn’t rinse well enough?

The yeast seemed okay, the temperature was okay and I can’t imagine the juice was a problem. I simply can’t think what else might have caused the fermentation to fail.

The jug is still sitting waiting for a miracle to happen but …

I have a new plan!

Another attempt, more modest this time – I can’t get any more of the non-pasteurized, non-treated fresh pressed stuff for this year but I can get a different juice – a smaller quantity! – and do a one-gallon test batch.

That’s likely to be as good as it gets for this year … unless I succumb to the temptation of the apple press I found last night on Used Ottawa … but no – not yet – not this year.

Gotta keep telling myself that – no, no, NO!

I’ll stick to the more manageable gallon batch, for which I most definitely do not need my own apple press!

So check back in a bit – that first batch may be dead but the cider saga continues to unfold!

Cider: Tale of Woe?

Well, the cider is … actually, I’m not sure how it is, so let me start at the beginning …

We picked up the juice on Friday – that’s the 30 litre pail – and once home again, used a siphon to transfer it into the 25 litre demi-john.

This is where we encountered our first problem. Somewhere around the halfway point, we put in the crushed Campden tablets and the pectin enzyme at the top recommended levels for 24 litres, then continued to fill the jug. But the juice ran out before the jug was full, leaving us about 2 litres short! The orchard had left a 4 inch air space at the top and it seems that the 30 litre measurement is right to the top of the bucket.

No problem, we thought, we’d go back the next day and get more. I’m not sure why, at this point, but it seemed reasonable at the time to address this before adding the yeast.

But there wasn’t any more of the untreated stuff. No problem, we were told – just treat the treated juice with Campden tablets and leave for six hours. Home we went with 2 litres of sweet cider and, with some misgivings, applied the treatment. Once six hours had passed, I put the yeast into some of the new stuff and waited. No action. Not good, I decided.

Off to a local grocery store we went to check out the options. Home we came with pasteurized juice, no chemical additives – better we hoped. And when I added the yeast I thought I detected activity so we added it to the jug.

Sunday – 24 hours later – nothing was happening. No foam, no bubbles – nothing. Was it the juice? The treatment? Too cold? Dead yeast? How does one know?!

Frantic research suggested it could be any or all of these things but also that beginners commonly add too little yeast and so I decided perhaps another packet couldn’t hurt – but it was Thanksgiving weekend here in Canada; we were busy with a dinner to prepare and stores were closed on Monday.

Tuesday, after work, I was finally able to get more yeast – four whole days after first treating the juice.

I took a different approach and made a starter out of boiled water and honey. Once cool, I added the yeast. Within minutes there were mini-eruptions exploding upward throughout the mixture. So, as directed on the packet, after 15 minutes I poured the lot into the jug. I had also brought the jug up from the basement, where it had been sitting at 16 or 17 degrees Celcius, and allowed it to warm up to 21 degrees.

And now, here we are at Wednesday …

Here’s what it looked like this morning.

And here’s what it looks like now.

Though not in place in the photos, I’ve had an airlock on it most of the time but there has not been even a hint of movement in it.

I’d like to think this is not where this story ends but have some fears that this may well be it. Yet I’ve also just a wee shred of optimism about what tomorrow will bring.

We’ll soon see …

Madoc & Carp Fairs past & present … and a cider challenge for the future

Carp Fair - 26 September 2009

My earliest acquaintance with the rural fairs was the Madoc Fair, which I attended often in childhood when visiting my grandmother. We lived in Toronto and I went to the CNE (Canadian National Exhibition) each year but it was the Madoc Fair that I loved.

Aside from candy apples and candy floss, the ferris wheel and midway games, I indulged my ‘inner farmer’ by visiting every barnyard animal in the place. I was green with envy of the 4H kids, who rode horses and raised calves.

I took in every exhibit – pies, pickles and preserves, sewing projects, vegetable and flower displays – and felt a certain satisfaction whenever I recognised an entrant’s name, especially if there was a ribbon attached.

But the best thing ? Madoc Fair taffy!
Unchanged from when my grandmother was a child to when I was last there five years ago, it was a taste of heaven I’ve never found anywhere else!

After moving to Ottawa, friends and I made annual treks to the nearby Carp Fair. It became a family event when my children were small.

The big guys! Carp Fair '09

It’s been a few years, but last weekend marked our return to the Carp Fair – an evening visit this time; previous ones always were afternoons. I didn’t get to the barns but I watched 80 huge draft horses, all harnessed to wagons in teams of eight, parading around the outdoor ring at once – a pretty impressive sight! We had a great hip-of-beef dinner in the dining hall.

The exhibits seemed scaled down compared to earlier fairs but it was there I noticed what, for me, was the highlight: the homebrew exhibit … with a cider category!

The category looked rather lonely with only one entry … so, if my cider project succeeds, it may just be a competition next year – second prize, in particular, looks within easy reach!