Don't keep home made cider in the fridge

Just don't.

You might be misled into thinking that it is a nice, cold, refreshing drink
with which to quench your thirst. It being quite moreish you might drink two
pints in one go and get another one ready. It might warm up inside you and
release all its alcohols all at once. You might be cunted.

 

"Don't"?

Sounds good to me.

 

You know that point where you think "Yup, shouldn't have drunk that last
pint - I may fall over soon"?

 

Sounds damn good to me ...

 

Don't fill the demijohns too much.
Don't leave them in the kitchen.
Don't get married.
The sediments in the demijohns will rise and block the airlock.
Pressure will build inside the demijohns.
You'll go happily to bed.
You'll wake up and find all the sediments tried to escape into the sky but
found your kitchen's ceiling along the way.
Your wife will find it out, too. Cleaning is OK (a bit of paint required),
the problem is fixing the wife now...

F

 

Heh. All good advice. During the first stages of fermentation it does fizz a
bit, eh?

 

Definitely . It kind of stopped in the past two days, is it ready to be
bottled? I started the whole process more or less 3 weeks ago, can it be
ready?
Also, do you have an idea of how to determine the ABV? Obviously I did no
measure the specific gravity at the beginning, I didn't have an hydrometer
back then (I have one now and it reads 1.0 more or less).
Thanks,

F

 

It can be ready in three weeks, depending on the temperature and the kind of
yeast you used. I kept mine going by using 'super yeast' to begin with,
adding more sugar, slightly shaking the demijohns occasionally, and
splashing it into clean demijohns every week or so to keep it oxygenated.

Have you tasted it yet? If it's still very sweet it might need longer,
although if the SG is around 1.0 then it probably isn't too sweet. Perhaps
more sugar is in order to keep it going, especially if it's too dry? Again,
it depends on the yeast you used.

As for the ABV, as far as I know you can only work this out if you measure
the SG at the start and compare it to what you have now. I find tasting it
is a good indication of alcohol content

 

It's dry. Very dry. I'll add more sugar then. I'm using Wilkinson super wine
yeast compound:
http://www.wilkinsonplus.com/invt/0022659

F

 

And another bit of advice:

When one[1] has a lodger that is fond of taking a sly nip at ones
home-made wine do not leave a bottle in the winerack with a strong
Campden tablet solution in it. Said lodger will have a good swig from
it without bothering to sniff the bottle beforehand and spend the next
hour being really really sick while you lie around laughing helplessly.

Phil

[1] Not me - the previous owners of the house where I grew up.

 

That should easily turn it into falling over water. Assuming all that's in
the bottom of the dj is sediment, i.e. no lumps of apple, splash it
(literally - don't just syphon it gently) into a clean dj containing a
cooled solution of something like half a pound of sugar dissolved in half a
pint of hot water. It should start fermenting again in a day or two. Try to
keep it at around 20C if you can. You can always add more sugar at any point
if it still doesn't taste as sweet as you'd like it.

 

Hehehe! Serves him glad. Did he die?

 

No. But he did move out at the end of the month..

Phil

 

I've never suffered from hangovers at all, which is nice.

Having just bottled the rest of my brew I now have 21 two litre bottles of
the stuff. I must look into getting/building an apple press for next year.

 

Where do you live, more or less?
I have two trees and I make more or less 120 kg of apples every year.

F

 

Or laxative chocolate cake for similar flat-sharers.

 

You're not drinking enough then.

 

Ramsgate, Kent. I have a Williams pear tree and three Asian pear trees grown
from seed, none of which produced anything of note this year because of a
late frost. Last year, loads, this year, sod all. All my apples this season
came courtesy of friends.

 

I'll work on this.

 

I didn't think I'd live to see the day you gave drinking advice.

I'll do work/life balance next week.