Pennbrook Cider, First Brew

I did it!  I actually brewed my very first cider and here are some things that I would like to note. But first a lovely picture of my first cider baby.

The bubbles are from the Star San Sanitizer solution, they disappear quickly as it is a no rinse solution.

• As I mentioned in my last post, I went with White Labs English Cider yeast, but it came in liquid form.  I was not a fan as it was hard to measure out 1/5th of the yeast.  One packet or one "pure pitch" makes a five gallon batch.  Since I am making only one gallon I only needed 1/5th of the pure pitch.
• The hydrometer I bought did not come with a test cylinder, which means I couldn't test the starting gravity of the apple juice.  Not the biggest deal in the world but now I won't be able to now the ending ABV%
• I didn't use any yeast nutrient as my brief research resulted in this particular yeast not needing any.

To start, I sanitized everything with Star San Sanitizer that Happy Puppy just happened to have as he uses it to clean his kegerator.  Once everything was sanitized, as you don't want any wild yeast to ferment in your brew, I measured as best as I could 1/5th of the yeast and added it to the carboy.  I added the apple juice and then plugged it with the airlock.  It is currently sitting in the laundry room and bubbles are starting to form indicating that fermentation is in process.  After 2 weeks I will check to make sure fermentation is done.  Once that happens I will write another post on how I rack my cider.

The actual process of pitching the yeast was fairly simple and anti-climatic which naturally made me think I did it wrong (stay tuned because I am sure I did it wrong).

Until next time, Happy Penguin