Quote:
Originally Posted by JayDeeZee
Thanks man, I'm going to check out a home brewing shop tonight.
I think I'm only going to try to make about 5 gallons.
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Yeah... thats a standard batch-size of doing this kinda thing outta your house, so you'll find plenty of vessels to fit that need at your local homebrew shop.
And I also missed a few things that you might need in my previous post... like a carboy brush to clean the carboys (though you might wanna skip using glass carboys, and just use plastic buckets for your first few batches)... and you'll probably also want a testing cylinder and hydrometer... so you can take samples of your cider at different stages, measure the specific gravity, and figure out how sweet/dry and how much of an ABV your potable's gonna have. And I imagine there'll be some sort of pectic enzyme that you'll need to toss into the juice to aid fermentation. You'll also need bottles to store your end product in.
Your local homebrew shop owner's really gonna be your best friend in these matters... if you're on a budget, let him know what it is, and then listen to what he has to say.
The process will probably go something like.... press apples, filter apple juice with a cheese-cloth or whatever into a bucket. rack (rack = move from one vessel to another - usually via siphoning hose) juice from bucket to fermentation vessel (or simply leave it in the bucket)... pitch pectic enzyme and yeast into the vessel, cap the vessel (with a bubbler release-valve so your vessel doesn't explode - that'd be bad.
), watch bubbling kick off (this is where having a glass carboy is cool as you can see the liquid fermenting), wait a couple of weeks to a month, keeping an eye on the bubbler to make sure it never clogs or dries out (one might cause something to explode, the other might let bacteria get in), rack cider from fermenter into _clean_ bottles (you might wanna add some form of bottling sugar in the bottles to kick off secondary fermentation (= more alcohol)- but be careful to not add too much or your bottles could explode), cap bottles and store in a cool/cold place... wait for a month or two, and drink until your heart's content.
There are few joys in life that are the same as drinking and sharing a beverage that you've fermented yourself.... especially when it turns out good.
Good luck, and have fun.