Hey all,
So, after trying a kit cider variation, and a store bought juice cider, I have taken the plunge and made a cider with fresh juice. I bought 20 litres of fresh pressed apple juice from Kellybrook Wineries cider festival to have a crack.
Now, my first two ciders were crazy dry. Dryer than a really dry thing. I really can't emphasise enough how dry they were. I burped and dust came out.
So this time I wanted to pull it back and make a sweeter cider (though I may have overdone it). The recipe is as follows:
20l Fresh Apple Juice
6 Campden Tabs (crushed and added to juice for 36 hours).
1kg Lactose
250g Dextrose
250g LDME
SN9 Yeast.
1l water (just to give the sugars a quick boil).
OG was 1076. Six days in had dropped to 1020 and eight days after that it is sitting pretty steady at 1018-1020ish with the airlock still bubbling, albeit very, very slowly.
It is still fairly sweet, but not overly so. Overall it tastes good, with great mouthfeel, but I was still expecting a little dryer after the last two (even with the 1kg Lactose).
So, a couple of questions...
Would you bottle it now? Call it done and see how it goes? 1020 still seems too high to me to bottle, but it's been steady for a week and I have no idea how that much Lactose would affect the FG.
What priming rate would you use?
Any general thoughts about the recipe?
Thanks in advance...
Link.