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Cal's Apple Something

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Cal

Cal

NewBee
Registered Member
Dec 20, 2012
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I basically just dumped a bunch of brown sugar into some apple juice. Added some yeast nutrient dissolved in water to the mix. Rehydrated fleishmans yeast per packet. It made a little yeast cloud. Once the carboy cooled down I shook to aerate pitched yeast.

In less than 30 minute it was burping.

This morning it was bubbling about 1.5 per second.

I forgot to measure brown sugar. It was a 2lb bag and 80% is gone. This was threw together experiment I saw on YouTube. Depending on how it turns out I may take it more serious in the future.
 
^Thats what i'm hoping quick and tasty. Depends on how this turns out I made do a spiced one with cinnamon, allspice etc.
 
I've done second runs (re-fermenting a fruit bag that's already been fermented once but the fruit still has some life left) with brown sugar and spices, I've been happy with them so far :)
 
1 week mark. Fermentation has slowed quite a bit but it is still burping. I wonder if I should add some yeast energizer to it.
 
The bubbling has slowed down even more from the post yesterday so I added some yeast nutrient and yeast energizer to it. I could almost hear the yeast saying "Thank You!!" as it started to foam immediately. As soon as I put the airlock back on it started burping like mad.

I guess I'll now let it go until it is clear.
 
Cal, if you've read up on nutrients and energizers, you'll know that the yeast can't use them once they're past about 1/3 to 1/2 of the way through the available sugars, and you can't tell that from airlock activity. You just can't. Adding nutrients or energizer when the yeast can't make use of it is just encouraging something else (ie, infection) to make use of it... Do yourself a big favour and get a hydrometer.

The increase in airlock activity that you're seeing is likely from nucleation points from adding dry powder, same as if you add a spoon full of sugar to soda water, the yeast can't perk up and get to business THAT fast...
 
I have a hydrometer but I put this together before I got it. Thanks for the tip I'll keep that in mind for future reference.
 
It's never too late!! Just because you don't have a starting SG doesn't mean that taking readings during your fermentation is of no use... if you have any idea how much brown sugar and apple juice you used you can probably get the mead calculator to give you a rough idea where you started to figure out your 1/3 break, but even without knowing that it would still be useful to have a reading now, for all you know it's slowing down because it's almost done all the sugars and all the energizer in the world can't perk up yeast if they're out of food.
 
Question for you guys and gals. This was made using Fleishmans. With JAO you just let it sit on the lees till it clears. Do y'all think I should try and rack this or just let it sit JAO style.
 
I don't know if this is something that you guys over the pond do much of, but over here we would call this 'Turbo Cider'. Its basically cider (the alcoholic beverage, not what you guys sometimes think of as cider) made by fermenting store bought apple juice mixed with some sugar.
 
I like that, "turbo cider", I may use that on the label next time I make some!

Yeah Cal, I'd let it sit till it clears, bread yeast is fine for a couple of months.
 
2 week update. This is quite murky though still bubbling. Smells must like beer taste like it to. I would have thought with all the sugar it would be sweeter, but I also understand its two weeks old so meh I am not worried.
 
I finally got around to checking the gravity on this. was 1.001. Explains the beer smell and over all dryness of it. I added some more brown sugar mixed in some water which brought the gravity to 1.058. I figured since bread yeast dies at 10-12 raising the gravity will cause the buggers to max out and die.

I tasted it then, no sweetness so I added more sugar to it. White table sugar this time. I have no idea what the gravity is as I broke my hydro meter.
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I also added a cinnamon stick, two all spices berries and two cloves. I will now leave it alone till it is clear then I will sample and decide what to do with it then.
 
With no hydrometer I cannot check to see if fermentation is done. The airlock had leveled out and is no longer bubbling or pressurized. This might be a failure.
 
So the airlock has reversed on this. No sign of clearing. Ummm what?
 
I had written this one off as a failure. It tasted weird. I needed a carboy so I racked this off into a water jug and forgot about it for a while. While looking over my threads I remembered this one and decided to give it a taste.


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It's drinkable! Not only that it is starting to come around. I have a glass in the freezer now to sample.

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