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Making cider, bottling update

DATE: 2018-11-06

AUTHOR: John L. Godlee

We bottled our cider, after sitting in the demijohns for 42 days.

Demijohns

Here is a breakdown of the volumes we got, in total I estimated it at 44.5 litres:

Fruit:

LS - Lady Sudeley - West Farm
BM - Bramley - David Burk's
GE - Green Eaters - Mike Cooper's
GD - Green Dessert - Mike Cooper's - Have a few cooking apples mixed in, maybe 5-10%
P - Pears - West Farm

Yeast:

S - Sweet - Bulldog Brews Cider Yeast
M - Medium - Brew Store Premium Cider Yeast
D - Dry - Fermentis SafCider
B - Generic dried bread yeast
P - Pear peel

┌────────────────────────────────┬───────┬────────────────────────┐
│             fruit              │ yeast │        amounts         │
╞════════════════════════════════╪═══════╪════════════════════════╡
│ 30% LS, 70% GD                 │ S     │ 9 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 30% LS, 70% GD                 │ M     │ 8 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 30% LS, 70% GD                 │ D     │ 8 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 50% BM, 50% GE                 │ M     │ 10 bottles             │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 50% BM, 50% GE                 │ S     │ 8 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 50% LS, 50% GD                 │ P     │ 7 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 50% LS, 50% GD                 │ B     │ 3 bottles + 1 demijohn │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 50% LS, 50% GD                 │ D     │ 9 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 50% LS, 50% GD                 │ M     │ 6 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 50% LS, 50% GD                 │ S     │ 9 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 100% LS                        │ D     │ 7 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 100% LS                        │ S     │ 1 demijohn             │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 100% P                         │ M     │ 5 bottles              │
├────────────────────────────────┼───────┼────────────────────────┤
│ 25% BM, 25% GE, 35% GD, 15% LS │ D     │ 6 bottles              │
└────────────────────────────────┴───────┴────────────────────────┘

By siphoning them, I got to try most of the demijohns. They certainly had different flavours, some were more flavourful than others, but hopefully they will mature into interesting ciders.

Sterilising the bottles took the majority of the time. We took the approach of rinsing with hot water, shaking some sterilising fluid (campden tablets dissolved in water) thoroughly in each bottle, then rinsing with cold water.

Sterilising bottles

I think we should leave the bottles for another couple of months before we start drinking in earnest, as with previous experience I've found that they get better over time.

Filled bottles

Labelling the bottles

We also made a mixture bottle of everything that spilled out of the demijohns into the bucket. Mega-mix Volume I.

The mega-mix