Dry Cranapple Cider

Got more apple juice than I needed for the Blueberry Cyser. Figured before it went bad or something, I might as well find a use for the 3/4 gallon left in the one opened gallon of juice. I'll save the other 2 gallons - which aren't opened yet - for later.

This will be my first attempt at taking something dry and light and then carbonating it with some priming sugar. We'll have to see how it goes!

Filtered mead with a reddish hue in a bucket

The cider after a pass through my new filter system. Remarkably clear considering this was immediately post-fermentation and had no natural clarity.

Timeline - Pitch to Bottle

11/11/2020 - pitched

Here we go!

11/16/2020 - filtered and bottled

So I got my mini jet filter and decided to see how well I could use it to rush through a short mead. I filtered instead of racking (once on the #1 pads and once on the #2 pads), then immediately bottled with 4 carbonation tablets per bottle. The bottles are in the garage, just in case they go full bottle bomb on me. We'll see how it goes!

A quick taste test of what went into the bottles was pretty flat. It has a little bit of cranberry and apple in it, but it's bone dry and fairly thin/watery. I'm hoping the carbonation rounds it out and gives it some bite.

Retrospective

Process Improvement

10 days wasn't long enough for bottle conditioning. I figured it would be a little flat since the package instructions on the sugar tablets were for 2 weeks, but I think this might need 3 weeks.

Recipe Improvements

This is probably slightly more cranberry juice than I'd personally like - I think it gives extra tartness. But this is a bit nitpicky, it's still pretty good. I think it will be great once properly carbonated (it does really need the carbonation, though).

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