Home Crafted Cider – First Racking

Yesterday was a beautiful day here in Ottawa, and I thought this view of a crabapple tree in Tunney’s Pasture fit in well with the apple theme.

With my cider ferment slowed right down, it was time to siphon it off the dead yeast and sediment.

Prep began the night before last as I gathered up the necessary equipment:

Once home from work yesterday, I sterilized everything well with Iodophor and got down to business!

I had purchased a suction-pump auto-siphon device, which works really well, but two hands just didn’t seem to be enough at times, resulting in spillage that had the whole house smelling like a brewery by the time I was done. In truth, I lost only perhaps a cup’s worth but it was spread around enough to make one awful mess!

The specific gravity measurement was 1.00 or thereabouts. I’ve found the device hard to read with a high degree of accuracy so it could in fact be 1.01 or 0.99 but no great matter; it’s good enough to tell me that, in comparison to my beginning reading of (approximately) 1.45, the alcohol content of my cider is somewhere between 5 and 6%. I’m happy with that!

The photo above shows the end result of yesterday’s efforts, but minus the large jug which is sitting in a rather unphotogenic corner of the basement. You can see here, however, a tall clear cylinder full of the still very cloudy cider. Interesting to see how pale a colour it has become and it’ll be interesting too to see how well the pectin clears in coming weeks.

The small jug you see here will be used to top up the large one in subsequent rackings. It’s not entirely full but it’s an Imperial gallon jug and I can transfer it to a smaller US gallon one if necessary.

I had no idea what to expect as far as loss due to sediment at the bottom of the demi-john and am pleased to report that it was very little – perhaps three cups? You can see it in the following photo:

And now for a taste report … bleccchh!!!

Research had warned me, but still not really prepared me, for the fact that it’s not very palatable at this point. Regardless, I found this to be somewhat distressing! It’s still faintly yeasty but also sour too, which is what happens when all the sugars are consumed by the yeast. I’m told it will improve by leaps and bounds over the next few months but still …

The whole while that I was researching how to make cider, I held to very purist notions of how mine would be made and distained the idea of adding sugar at the end – back-sweetening, I think it’s called. After those initial sips though, I’m reconsidering. I tested it out on yesterday’s sample and, though I erred in over-sweetness, I found it much better with sugar than without. It could be a tricky thing to get it right though. Ah well, something to work on.

Check back for future updates!