However, one batch raises a question: we had one carboy that was fermented with Lallemand "belle saison" ale yeast, and it finished with a high gravity. It's not just marketing, and it's not just the variations of our own subjective taste-buds from one night to the next. Our first observation last night was: WOW! Different yeasts really do impart different flavors to the cider. We did no rackings between October pressing and last night's bottling. From appearances, all of the carboys in this trial were done they had dropped fairlyĬlear, the airlocks were still under pressure but not visibly bubbling,Īnd the lees appeared well-settled. The fruit is a diverse blend, but none of it was commercially grown, and none of it came from fertilized trees, so the juice was likely low-nutrient. We had some warm weather during the first few weeks after pressing, so we started out with vigorous fermentation. These carboys were exposed to serious sub-freezing temperatures at least twice this year, and the average temperature during the last few months was probably about 45 F, so about 7 or 8 C. Actually, it is a back corner of a large unheated barn, on a concrete slab. The fermenting chamber of our Chateau is chilly. I.e., same juice, same dose of sulfite (25 ppm), same fermenting conditions, same amount of time, etc. All other factors were equal, as far as we could control. In an October pressing, we put a uniformly blended juice into multiple fermenters and pitched a different strain of yeast in each one. Last night, my wife and I bottled our yeast trials. Here's my first substantive post on this group.
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