another newbie with questions

[NTRabbit]

Stumbled across this forum by accident last week (Google ftw!) and decided to hang around

Im a brand new brewer, picked up a Tooheys kit as a gift from my folks for my 22nd birthday early May. Made the tooheys special draught that came with it, which is now residing in 59 previously empty Carlton Cold bottles, fair upgrade for the bottles I say. Managed to keep it at a constant temp of 20-21*C 24/7 wrapped in a blanket, smelled good when i bottled it, tasted good, looks great in the bottle according to my uncle (been brewing for 10 years or so) so im hoping it gases well and ends up tasting much better than my mates first attempt at homebrew with a Coopers Pale kit. Competition leads to better quality afterall

Anyway, here comes the actual question - while im collecting another case worth of empties to have a crack at a Lager, ive decided to turn the fermenters downtime into Apple Cider time. Got myself all the ingredients for Oliver's #35 and 30 PET bottles from what will now be my regular HBS homeport, and i noticed the Black Rock can tells me i need to keep the temperature between 23*C and 28*C - is that a definite, or can i run it at the constant 20-21*C i was getting for my Draught?

[Oliver]

NTRabbit,

Welcome, and thanks for hanging around!

The question of temperature is one that is often discussed here.

My view is that around the 20C mark is perfect. If you do a search you'll find heaps of info.

So the bottom line is that, in my view, 20C-21C is ideal for the cider.

Cheers,

Oliver

[NTRabbit]

Awesome, thanks for the reply Oliver.

Its already in the fermenter at 26*C initial as of 20 minutes ago and should keep a nice 20*C for the rest of the time. Hopefully it doesnt become my first failure cause those cider cans are a touch costly.

[Oliver]

It'll be fine. I promise

As I said a couple of days back, I reckon that worry has led to the failure of more homebrews than any other factor.

Oliver

[NTRabbit]

Panic stations! I went out to check my cider today and it has overflowed out of the airlock, filling up the lid from the top. It is continuing to overflow, and is now in danger of filling up the indented lid entirely and running down onto the carpet. I roughly followed the #35 recipe, except i went to 21.5 litres and 175g of lactose.

I've siphoned off and discarded the cider that was sitting in the lid, toweled and washed up what was left, rinsed the airlock and replaced the water, then stuck it back in the washer only far enough for it to be airtight. Hopefully no damage was done.

[Oliver]

Fear not. It will still be fine.

It sounds like the temperature is a bit high, which is causing the yeast to go berko.

Try and lower the temperature and it should be fine (although you'll probably find that this level of yeast activity is relatively short-lived anyway).

Also take the airlock out, clean it up, refit it and refill with cooled boiled water.

I've had this foaming happen a few times, and the beer has always been OK.

It's all part of the fun

Cheers,

Oliver

[gregb]

Relax, have a homebrew.

For future brews lager yeast is less likely to give you the swamp monster out the top. Not sure what taste affect it would have in a cider though.

[NTRabbit]

A final question as my cider approaches the end of its 14th day fermenting - the can said an FG of 1006 is to be expected following their recipe, but since i followed Olivers recipe only with 175g of lactose instead of 125 (filled to 23L initially), can i expect a higher FG of say, 1014? Or does it still need more time?

Thanks

[Oliver]

Have you had the same SG reading on consecutive days?

If so, it's ready to bottle. If not, leave it for a couple more days and test on subsequent days again.

What were the ingredients in it again? Exactly the same as mine except the quantity of lactose? Mine came out to 1013 in 18 litres, so I'd expect you to get about 1010-1011 with the same ingredients. But the extra lactose could account for the slightly higher SG.

Oliver