On the property I lived on in Vermont we had 6 apple trees so would make apple jack every year using nothing but the apples and the natural yeast on the fruit. The thing is with wild yeast you never know what the end flavor will be. Some years it was great, other years it was cider vinegar. Once it was close to finished I would put it outside to freeze and take the ice off the top. That stuff was wicked strong when it worked.
@8:30 If you capture some wild yeast, you can cultivate them and avoid any issues of tanin's for future use. I would strongly recommend doing so as a time saver among other things. I have been collecting my yeast from the sides of birch bark tree's : ) They can make mead and they can make bread!! I have yet to hit over 8% abv with my birch bark yeast harvesting.
Sounds like this will be an interesting one. My Christmas gift to myself will be two of those 1.4 gallon blubbers. And having a bit of fun. After the new year.
Ah excellent! I do recommend using the drilled bungs and standard airlocks rather than the ones built into the lid. The evaporation is a bit high on them.
Question for you. I was kind of happy to see this video because the next brew I'm planning I was looking at using apple skins in the fermentation mix. Does a cyser require the whole fruit? or can it be viewed as a cyser with just the skins in being used? I guess these days with the economy in the toilet I'm trying to reduce waste to as near zero as possible and fermenting fruit skins (excluding citrus peels, as I dry those and use them as firelighters) seems a good way to do this
For my definitions, "Cyser" can absolutely apply to using part of the apple, apple juice, etc. The thing about JUST using the skins though, is that they usually contain a pretty high tannin content, so you'd want to moderate that a bit or your mead may end up too astringent.
On the property I lived on in Vermont we had 6 apple trees so would make apple jack every year using nothing but the apples and the natural yeast on the fruit. The thing is with wild yeast you never know what the end flavor will be. Some years it was great, other years it was cider vinegar. Once it was close to finished I would put it outside to freeze and take the ice off the top. That stuff was wicked strong when it worked.
@8:30 If you capture some wild yeast, you can cultivate them and avoid any issues of tanin's for future use. I would strongly recommend doing so as a time saver among other things. I have been collecting my yeast from the sides of birch bark tree's : ) They can make mead and they can make bread!! I have yet to hit over 8% abv with my birch bark yeast harvesting.
Words, English, they elude me too sometimes lol
i like your nails.
Thank you! The color's a bit chipped, so they'll either be plain or a different color fairly soon, I think 🤣
Sounds like this will be an interesting one. My Christmas gift to myself will be two of those 1.4 gallon blubbers. And having a bit of fun. After the new year.
Ah excellent! I do recommend using the drilled bungs and standard airlocks rather than the ones built into the lid. The evaporation is a bit high on them.
@@MethodtotheMeadness yeah I've seen others with them too. Even they recommend the airlock. So that's on the list as well.
Question for you. I was kind of happy to see this video because the next brew I'm planning I was looking at using apple skins in the fermentation mix. Does a cyser require the whole fruit? or can it be viewed as a cyser with just the skins in being used?
I guess these days with the economy in the toilet I'm trying to reduce waste to as near zero as possible and fermenting fruit skins (excluding citrus peels, as I dry those and use them as firelighters) seems a good way to do this
For my definitions, "Cyser" can absolutely apply to using part of the apple, apple juice, etc. The thing about JUST using the skins though, is that they usually contain a pretty high tannin content, so you'd want to moderate that a bit or your mead may end up too astringent.
It would be cool if you make this mead, and a 2nd one wirh purchased yeast instead of wild to get a side by side comparison
Very cool idea! :-p
How did this turn out?
It did not 🤣
Back to the drawing board