Hard Cider

[Al_Smith]

Well now that brings up my theory. We just kind of recycle what  we drink.It could be from rain or liquid such as cider ,my favorite is beer BTW .We only rent it so to speak then expel it .So in theory I could drink a few brews, mark my territory on one of the massive oaks I have . Some could make it's way to Lake Erie out the Niagara river into the Atlantic Ocean .Form a rain cloud then drift back westward and rain on Columbus Ohio right on top of a former wife .Poetic justice as I see it . ;D

[LeeB]

 :D :D :D :D

[Don P]

Not like it was back in the good old days when water could strip flesh.. It's pretty much all dinosaur pee and Genghis Khan breath anymore .

[Al_Smith]

I don't know if this is true or not .It was told  to me by an old well driller who knew pretty much about  the under ground water aquafers in NW Ohio .He said some of my water in one well could have came from the second ice age .It would be a safe bet nobody is alive who could verify that as fact or fiction.
Now that was only on the shallow well of 117 feet in a gravel vein .The deep well in the limestone at 180 feet might be dinosaur pee for all I know .Stunk like it when it had sulfur  which is all gone for some reason .If you go deep enough you will hit oil .About 1700 feet .They just keep mum about that  .

[LeeB]

A question for those of you that make naturally fizzed cider, how do you get it cleared? I have some now that is about 14% and still fizzing slightly but is still very clouded as is normal with raw wine. At 7 or 8 % where it was still quite fizzy it was even more cloudy.

[21incher]

A question for those of you that make naturally fizzed cider, how do you get it cleared? I have some now that is about 14% and still fizzing slightly but is still very clouded as is normal with raw wine. At 7 or 8 % where it was still quite fizzy it was even more cloudy.

I use yeast and give it time. My batch is still  settling out from the first  fermenting  and in a couple  weeks I will siphon  it off to a slightly smaller  carboy being careful  not to stir up the dregs. Then I move that to my cool basement still under airlock to let the final sediment settle down before re siphoning to the bottling bucket. I find it takes about 6 months of sitting  in the second  carboy to have perfectly clear cider and you want very little head space in the second carboy. Bottle it to soon and there will be nasty yeast sediment in the bottom  of the bottles that messes up the flavor.  Also be sure  it's  in a cool location for the best flavor.  Mine is not bubbly though. 

[LeeB]

That is what I do for wine and at that point I would consider it to be apple wine and not cider. To me cider has a fizz to it. 

[kantuckid]

I don't know if this is true or not .It was told  to me by an old well driller who knew pretty much about  the under ground water aquafers in NW Ohio .He said some of my water in one well could have came from the second ice age .It would be a safe bet nobody is alive who could verify that as fact or fiction.
Now that was only on the shallow well of 117 feet in a gravel vein .The deep well in the limestone at 180 feet might be dinosaur pee for all I know .Stunk like it when it had sulfur  which is all gone for some reason .If you go deep enough you will hit oil .About 1700 feet .They just keep mum about that  .

My FIL, who died in 1980 drilled in OH for oil, gas and water. He drilled for water as a sideline when he worked for Dayton Rubber. His brother who owned the oil company he drilled for lived in Zanesville, OH
All states, including OH, they know very well what many formations hold at what levels. The required cores are stored by state geological agencies and recorded. It's no secret, as you suggest. 
Having "some" oil/gas  doesn't mean it's enough to rile brandon... :D
Often that coniferous gas/sulphur smell comes in an area where drillings been done.  

[kantuckid]

That is what I do for wine and at that point I would consider it to be apple wine and not cider. To me cider has a fizz to it.

Go on any informative wine makers supply website of info site and you'll see clearing agents for sale. They are included in all wine making ingredients kits. Of course settling is a part of the process, as is carefully siphoning the product. I use an inexpensive siphon device sold by all wine makers suppliers. Commercial producers filter. 

[21incher]

That is what I do for wine and at that point I would consider it to be apple wine and not cider. To me cider has a fizz to it.

The best way to carbonate it is supposed to be, ferment it dry, then back sweeten with apple juice then keg it and force carbonate it. Fizzy cider can turn into bombs naturally from what I have read.

[Ianab]

With beer you ferment until all the sugar is used up. Fermentation stops because the yeast has run out of sugar, not the alcohol getting so high that it kills the yeast. Then you add a small controlled amount of sugar and bottle it. 


Providing you DID complete the primary ferment, and don't add to much sugar, it will naturally carbonate (and not explode). Of course mistakes happen, usually a stalled ferment (too cold?), so you bottle with too much residual sugar, and that creates bottle bombs   


Traditional Champagne is done in a similar way, and they decant out the residual yeast and reseal the bottle,  So if it works for beer and wine, so reason it won't work for cider. 


You also want to get your alcohol % up to at least 5%, because that acts a preservative. Too high and the yeast dies off before fermentation completes. Different yeasts have different tolerances, hence the mention of using a wine yeast. Of course the different yeast types also affect the flavour.  

[Don P]

As a kid I was brewing some dandelion wine in my bedroom and thought it was done, so capped the gallon cider jug off tight and was waiting for it to settle. About midnight one night the bottle blew, took out some drywall and covered pretty much everything in sticky smelly sauce. Dad was unimpressed :D.

Some years later I capped off some beer apparently too early. The interesting thing about a case of overcarbonated bottles, when one goes, they pretty much all go off. I had learned enough by then that I kept them in a cooler.

With apple I'm no pro but was using champagne yeast which is pretty neutral but tolerates high alcohol. I was making a still wine but no reason you could not carbonate it. I'd save some heavy champagne bottles, regular wine bottles are thin.

[kantuckid]

Yes, wine with pressure calls for wired on caps & heavy bottles.
 Winemakers routinely "kill" any possibility of residual fermentation (for safety) prior to bottling using potassium sorbate. This also allows back-sweetening to get a wine where you like it on the dryness scale w/o danger of a blow up which would certainly happen if any sugars introed.  
  Wine juice is typically made inert prior to initial fermentation using Campden Tablets so there are no wild yeasts or vinegar bad guys present. Then the wine yeast is introduced and primary ferment begins. 
Some wines have a natural fizzyness that comes from that grape varietal. We buy store bought Riunite Lambrusco am Italian wine, (mostly Emilia version) which was once the most popular retail wine in the entire USA. We use it for Sangria as it has just the right character for that drink (we mix it with fresh OJ) and is inexpensive as well. It has some fizz on your tongue, not as much like a truly fizzy wine that pops when opened.
I've never made a pressurized wine. 
My first wines were done from seasonal (once a year back then) Thompson Seedless grapes when I worked in a grocery store (loose grapes were thrown away in those days) and came out a nice pink. I was around 20 yrs old and had no idea what I was doing other than asking around from beer makers I knew.  

[tule peak timber]

Be careful with pressurized wine. When I was a young lad, I temporarily capped some 5 gal. glass water bottles when I was moving from a downstairs apartment to a newer upstairs unit. I took one of the sealed fermentation jugs upstairs, immediately returned downstairs for the next one and found it had exploded in the kitchen, spraying ferment over all of the cabinets and even ruined the ceiling acoustical spray!  It occurred to me that the bottle upstairs might do the same thing, so I ran upstairs and found the same thing. Two explosions in two different apartments, the same day. What an expensive double mess!  :'( 
My great-grandfather had 21 kids and his own wine label. He sold out to a little CA upstart guy named Gallo. I've used grapes, cactus fruit, ginger root, rose hips and other stuff I can't recall with varying degrees of success. I have a lot to learn about wine making! 

[LeeB]

I never would have thought about cactus tunas but it makes good jelly so why not wine?

[tule peak timber]

You need to peel them, but they are full of sugar.

[kantuckid]

The list of what can be used for wine is long indeed but many of those things make a wine which is unremarkable. Mostly some things just lack flavor that is meaningful. 
Another tidbit on wine that might catch some off guard, wine grapes are far sweeter than table grapes. Ask someone around you and they'll assume a table grape would be sweeter as we buy them to place directly in our mouth, so on. I've had mixed results with batches of the same fruits. One of the best wines I ever made was from Marionberries-a tame blackberry variety. I made it again a few years back and it's drinkable but far from as good. Likely I didn't control the sugar to be same in those batches, or the fruit just had more flavor in one vs. the other. 
Those Thompson Seedless Grapes I mentioned, were once about the only seedless grape grown. The wine they make has very mild flavor that definitely doesn't stand out. Mostly it's not worth using many grapes not a wine variety to ferment. 
There's been lots of Welch's grape juice concentrate wine made but IMO, it's a waste of time. 
 

[Don P]

One of the best fermentables is day old donuts but it isn't much on flavor  .

When you close the loop on that group of cottage industries, a horse-cart with a still on it made its way through the area stopping at each farm. The sorry wine made good brandy, or, good wine made excellent brandy. We chose to put a high paywall in front of that simple horse cart.

[LeeB]

One of the best fermentables is day old donuts but it isn't much on flavor

Are you letting out secrets about your past? :D

[tule peak timber]

Wild rose hips with sugar added to the ferment turned out pretty good.

[21incher]

One of the best fermentables is day old donuts but it isn't much on flavor

A friend of mine made awesome bacon with doughnutsfood6. Every couple hours Dunkin Doughnuts used to toss them out and make fresh. Fattened up his pig Nixon with them fast in the last couple weeks.

[Don P]

Kinda sugar cured from the inside out  :D

[SwampDonkey]

Pickled to. Pickled pig's feet anyone? :D

[tule peak timber]

Please sir ,,,may I have another ? 8)