This weekend I have prepared a second cyser. I hope that I can repeat the success from last year because that mead is just fantastic.
At first I needed apple juice. I have been collecting apples throughout September so that I would have enough for 20 L. This year the season is over already, so I have been storing apples in airtight boxes hoping that they were not all rotten when I got access to the apple press.
Most of the afternoon Saturday I was crushing and pressing apples with some help from a friend. In the end I had about 16 L so I went to the local store to pick up some apples (fortunately they were on sale) – 12 kg of danish aroma apples which turned into about 6 L.
Crushing…
And pressing…
Red Ingrid Marie: 7 L
Guldborg: 5 L
Aroma: 5 L
Pigeon, Ananas, and “unknown”: 3 L
20 L of apple juice
5.5 kg of summer honey
12 g of pectonase
Sweet mead/wine yeast (WLP720)
In the evening I prepared the must by raising the temperature of the must to 80C for 10 min to knock out wild yeast. Since I only have one 12 L pot I had to heat 10 L at a time.
This year I wanted to take into account the sugar content of the apples (yes that was what I did not do last year….). I measured the gravity of the warm must to about 1.035@60C, so at 20C the gravity is probably closer to 1.040 so if I want to start at 1.120, I need to add about 0,080 in honey. Last year I got an increase in gravity of about 0.016 for 1 kg of honey when the total volume was 20L, so that would be 0.080/0.016= 5 kg. Now adding honey will increase the volume and I will also loose water during the boiling, so I estimated my total volume to 22 L so all in all I would need 5 kg /20L*22L =5.5 kg. Then OG should be around 1.120.
Yeast starter: On the yeast bottle it says that a 1-2 pint starter should be considered if OG is higher than 1.070. So I diluted 300 ml of must with 300 ml of boiled (and cooled) water. The gravity was measured to about 1.058. The yeast was heated to room temperature for 3 hours and then added to diluted must. I used a magnetic stirrer to agitate the solution so I would continuously aerate the solution. Then I left the starter over night so that I could add it the next day in the evening, when the must had cooled.
Sunday morning the must had cooled to 28C so I added 12g of pectonase. I would now have the entire day to work on the must.
Well, things initially looked good with the starter but then suddenly at around noon I find the the stirrer was overheating and the started had been heated to 35C. I did not have anything nice to say by then. Fortunately I have several yeasts in the fridge, so I could quickly begin preparing a second starter using the same volumes as before. This time I used my home made magnetic stirrer (instructions on how to do that later). Secondly I aerated the starter solution with a kitchen mixer to speed up the process. The yeast was taken out of the fridge at 14:30. At 17:00 the starter was prepared and it was added to the must at 23:00. Not must time to become a starter…………
Second attempt at a starter. Notice there are two yeast flasks to the right. Aerate…
…then stirring…
The OG of the must was 1.116 (as could be expected from the gravity of the starter…) I also measured pH with my new purchased pH meter – no more pH strips :o). The must was 3.21 whereas the starter was 3.40 so I guess the CO2 generated by the yeast lifted pH a bit. Usually pH is high in the must and is then lowered by CO2 generation.
The must was aerated by stirring it roughly with a large spoon for a few minutes and then the starter was added. Now it is just time to wait and see when the happy bubbling will start.