Lazy way to rack cider.

I decided I didn't want to siphon into a container on the floor like last year, and having to then lift it, as well as all the air that got into the cider with siphoning so this time I connected the taps together and hoisted one higher than the other as the level of the primary fermenter drained across into the other and no air entered the cider as it did it, I just used a simple rope pulley attached to the beams in the shed and it saved my back having to lift things around, at my age it has to be good.

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It's great when you manage something labour-savingly clever! Is the purpose to leave the sediment behind? How much do you pick up with the low tap as opposed to a siphon from the top?

Ruth;456905 wrote: It's great when you manage something labour-savingly clever! Is the purpose to leave the sediment behind? How much do you pick up with the low tap as opposed to a siphon from the top?

This year I made a new cider press and scratter and it had far less sediment than last year and the sediment was below the tap, I could gently tilted the container till I saw the dregs starting to flow and captured most of it in the tube.

Last year I used a mincer type juice extractor that cost over $300 but it took two of us 8 hours to extract 30lts and produced lots of sediment, this year two of use put 80Kg of apples through the scratter in about an hour and extracted 56lts of juice.

This was the first effort with the press, only partially full and from 48Kg of apples I got 33lts of juice, I only use about 4 ton pressure, in case I ruptured the net curtain, the 2 jacks will give it 12ton but I think things might start to disintegrate.

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Just in case anyone is wondering what a scratter is it's just an apple crusher, I'm not 100% happy with the one I made as it needs the apples poked with a stick to get them to feed through, so it's getting a course of thinking about, I made the scratter drum and motor in line as I can't see the point of having pulleys and belts when there is no need, and it doesn't throw bits of apple out when it's rotating side ways, so some things worked OK but not fully satisfied with it.

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i thought a bit of aeration would get give the fermentation a boost... i have a red going (au natural - no yeast) and i try and splash a bit every time i rack over...

Akzle;456982 wrote: i thought a bit of aeration would get give the fermentation a boost... i have a red going (au natural - no yeast) and i try and splash a bit every time i rack over...

Hi Akzle, I hadn't thought of that, I will see how it goes, the fermentation is slowing down now, I will take another gravity reading in a day or two, but worth a thought if it starts to stick.

It's just that one of my batches last year was a little vinegary and I like to make a drinkable cider first, I only convert what I want at the time, we don't pasteurize our vinegar, we're still using some that's 6 months old and it's not thrown any more vinegar mother, I store it in 1lt glass bottles in the dark and make sure the containers have no air space.

According to an article on making vinegar, the acetic acid is converted to co2 and water if it's exposed to air, the trouble is how do you know when the maximum amount of acetic acid has been produced before the process goes to far and starts to convert the vinegar back to water. I go of the taste test if it's paint stripper strength that's good enough and it gets bottled.

Edit, whats your alcohol content, vinegar making is usually made from 5 or 7% alcohol, high alcohol will kill the vinegar bug.

you're making vinegar?

vinegar is normally what happens when a batch goes bad

i normally brew beer, but got given 30lb of grapes, so figured i'd do what i normally do, when i can: make booze!

If you over-aerate, I suspect that you will get the wrong bugs growing. Yeast works because the lack of oxygen lets the yeast grow, but not other spoilage organisms.
I think that to make vinegar you need the correct bug that converts the ethanol to acetic acid. I don't stop my brews with pasteurization nor one of the cheimicals, so it goes very, very dry. Some people have described it as vinegar, because of this dryness, but it still has all the alcohol and no acetic acid.

Akzle;457045 wrote: you're making vinegar?

Only with part of it, some is going to be booze, and it's so much easier than making beer.

LongRidge;457074 wrote:
I think that to make vinegar you need the correct bug that converts the ethanol to acetic acid. I don't stop my brews with pasteurization nor one of the cheimicals, so it goes very, very dry. Some people have described it as vinegar, because of this dryness, but it still has all the alcohol and no acetic acid.

I'm still getting a taste for cider and still like it a little sweet but am persevering, if you are near Hope pop in, unfortunately I'm just about out of cider till the next batch is ready.
I used a commercial organic vinegar to start my first lot, and just keep it going from that,
I think the cider that was vinegary was from Dayton apples and they seem to take on a winey vinegary scent when getting over ripe and it did go very dry, but it made an excellent vinegar so didn't matter.
The most drinkable we made last year was from 5 varieties, very little got converted to vinegar.

if you want to combat dryness, less fermentable sugars and add malto