log_2015-11-03.txt

== Recipe ==

Ingredients:
 5 gal raw apple juice
 1 lb dark brown sugar
 3 bags of black tea
 1 tsp yeast nutrient
 2.5 tsp pectic enzyme
 1 lime
 Nottingham ale yeast

Bring 2 cups of water to a boil. Remove from heat and add 3 bags of
black tea and the juice from 1 lime. Let stand for 10 minutes. Remove
the tea bags. Dissolve 1 lb of dark brown sugar, 1 tsp yeast nutrient
and 2.5 tsp pectic enzyme. Bring to a boil and then turn off heat.

Pour 1 gallon of raw apple juice into the fermenter. Add the limey tea
syrup. Pour in the remaining apple juice.

Add yeast and let ferment in primary for 3-4 weeks.

== "Brew" day (2015-11-03) ==

Cecilia helped out. We mostly followed the recipe but added 4 tsp of
yeast nutrient instead of 1, coz the pack said 1 per gallon.

Not much head space in the fermentor. A bit concerned about that. Will
keep the bucket on the bathroom floor for the first few days, just in
case.

OG: 1.054

Added 2 packs of dry Notthingham ale yeast. Had kept these packs in
the fridge for about a year. Best before date was early 2016. The
batch started bubbling away nicely within 4 hours of pitching.

== Racked to secondary (2015-11-23) ==

SG: 1.000

Near the 3 week mark. Gravity appears to be precisely 1, suggesting an
ABV of 7%. Thick layer of yeast on the bottom. No issues in
racking. Secondary fermenter is a 6-7 gallon carboy. A bit too much
headspace perhaps, but I'm thinking there's a lot of dissolved CO2 in
there which will hopefully be enough to push out the air.

Smell was very pleasant. Apples and cider. Some sweetness and a hint
of acidity.

Taste has something to do with apples. It is very watery though, and
has a sour aftertaste. Some hint of alcohol in the flavour, but not as
much as I thought there'd be given the ABV. At this point, the cider
isn't by any means tasty, but it's not too off putting either. I drank
the whole sample, for science.

Color is not too dissimilar from the original apple juice. Still very
hazy. No visible particles floating around, but very hazy. I expected
it to be clearer at this point.

Some googling revealed that I shouldn't have boiled the pectic enzyme,
so I'll go ahead and add another 2.5 tea spoons now. Won't be able to
stir it in though, since it's already in the carboy. Will give it a
light swirl at least.

== Bottling (2016-07-18) ==

Siphoned off 2 cups to be able to experiment a bit with additions of
sweetener and apple concentrate.

It tasted like shit. Watery and sour. Almost poured it all down the
drain, but decided last minute to at least bottle some of it.

Dissolved 3.5 oz table sugar in 1 cup water for priming. Added to
bottling bucket, along with 5 tsp apple flavour concentrate and 1/2
tsp Stevia. It all came out to about 4 - 4.3 gallons.

The idea was originally to carefully try to find the perfect mix of
stevia and concentrate, but since I almost dumped the whole batch I
just decided to go for a concentration I've seen someone else mention
on a forum somewhere.

Bottled 4 six packs. Fully expect them to be disgusting.

== Reflection (2019-11-05)

I kept these bottles around for 1-2 years and tried it on occasion. It
never got "good", but arguably became little bit less bad over
time. Never really drinkable though.