Throwback: Prehistoric Cider

Batch Timeline

Batch #	Batch Type	Date in Primary	Date in Secondary	Date Racked	Date Racked	Date Filled
N/A	Cider (Cyser Hydromel)	2010?	2011?	???	3/9/13, 6/25/13	12/7/13

Yeast Type:  Unknown

Ingredients:  Some kind of apple cider (wolffe farms?  Styx cider mill?)
Other ingredients are unknown.  Probably some yeast nutrient and pectic enzyme

Comments:

This is an old old batch of cider.  We don't know when we made it or with what.  We have no data on it at all.  This is a batch we made that developed a beautiful amber color in the carboy and was so beautiful we did not want to risk ruining it by messing up the bottling.  And so it sat.  And sat.  And sat.  We took it with us on the field trip to Carl's and got some tips on adjustment, but didn't adjust until...

On 3/9/13 we finally racked, adjusted, stabilized and sweetened.  To approx 4.5 gallons we added 2.5 campden tablets, 1.25 tsp potassium sorbate, 2 oz of glycerin (for improved mouthfeel), 0.5g wine tanin (for flabbyness) and 2 12oz cans of apple concentrate (for sweetness).

We tasted this after all additions to judge balance of sweet and acid and a somewhat strong chemical taste was present, presumably from the campden.  We said we'd taste again after dissipation.

There was approx. 1 gallon of extra cider that did not fit in the carboy.  That 1 gallon went into sub-batch 10B.

6/25/13 Racked again and tasted.  Currently dry and a bit weak.  Could benefit from additional sweetening and maybe some bourbon to create a "bourbon barrel" style cider.   Not too cloudy, settling nicely.  Not over acid like batch 10A and 10B turned out.

12/5/13:
Added 2.5 lbs Jimbo's spring honey and 2 cups boiled water (to thin honey for easy mixing) and placed in cold garage for chilling.  This makes it technically a cyser hydromel.

12/7/13:
Racked into corny keg containing a chunk of dry ice to prevent oxidation.  Pressure transferred from one sanitized corny keg through a whole house sediment filter into another sanitized corny keg.  That was held for 2 hours under 85 psi CO2 and on ice.  Filled at 20psi with beer gun into dry-ice chilled bottles.  The end result was unfortunately not very carbonated.  One can tasted a bit of dissolved CO2, but it does not fizz when opened or poured.  Cam placed some small chunks of dry ice into several of his at filling and these were marked CO2, we'll see how those fared.  Yield was 12 22oz and 23 12 oz.