A cider-y query
Posted: Tue Feb 03, 2009 6:09 pm
Hey all, I have a query regarding an extremely amateur attempt at making cider.
I moved into my place in September and discovered an apple tree in the garden to my great delight. This coincided with the Spark running a short article on making cider and in particular, making your own on a small scale. The recipe itself was (as I can remember) basically put juiced apples in a demijohn and leave it until Christmas, then add a campden tablet to stop fermentation, or alternatively, leave it for longer to create scrumpy. I started it mid-late September, it definitely had a good old bubbling session with all the brown sludge and what not and then calmed down. I keep forgetting about it and now it's February. It has sludge at the bottom, a bit of white sediment on top, smell nice and boozy, not eggy or anything.
Does this sound like I'm going to hurt myself if I drink it? That's 'hurt myself' subjectively and relatively
I nicked a little out of it to put in some soup and whilst it was frying off, it smelt like alcohol generally does when you cook it.
Am I worrying too much? I'd like to leave it until my birthday in March if possible. Should it be in bottles now and not the demijohn? Shall I just try a bit and see how I feel? Will I poison myself horribly?
All advice eagerly received, this is my first attempt and I haven't really a clue as to what I'm doing :D
I moved into my place in September and discovered an apple tree in the garden to my great delight. This coincided with the Spark running a short article on making cider and in particular, making your own on a small scale. The recipe itself was (as I can remember) basically put juiced apples in a demijohn and leave it until Christmas, then add a campden tablet to stop fermentation, or alternatively, leave it for longer to create scrumpy. I started it mid-late September, it definitely had a good old bubbling session with all the brown sludge and what not and then calmed down. I keep forgetting about it and now it's February. It has sludge at the bottom, a bit of white sediment on top, smell nice and boozy, not eggy or anything.
Does this sound like I'm going to hurt myself if I drink it? That's 'hurt myself' subjectively and relatively
I nicked a little out of it to put in some soup and whilst it was frying off, it smelt like alcohol generally does when you cook it.Am I worrying too much? I'd like to leave it until my birthday in March if possible. Should it be in bottles now and not the demijohn? Shall I just try a bit and see how I feel? Will I poison myself horribly?
All advice eagerly received, this is my first attempt and I haven't really a clue as to what I'm doing :D
