In my previous post I noted that my initial attempt at fermenting juice into alcohol goodness had been a failure. It wasn't! I succeeded.
I was originally moved to try this at one point by a post at Mr. Money Mustache detailing the simplicity of fermenting alcohol goodness. I originally bookmarked that link about a year ago when I was doing my Mr. Money Mustache blog-reading binge, and it's sit on the back burner ever since.
Then I listened to one of Jack Spirko's podcasts where he again explained some of the alcohol goodness that can be fermented very simply, and I decided that the waiting would have to stop. I was going to ferment alcohol. And it would be good.
So I bought a carboy, a stopper, and airlock, and a bunch of yeast off of Amazon. And I bought a gallon of 100% pure apple juice (no preservatives, as they inhibit fermentation by the yeast.)
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| The empty juice bottle (I used two of these). And a packet of yeast from Amazon. It's a Cuvee yeast. |
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| I've read that you really only need a half teaspoon of this stuff. I dumped in the whole thing. |
Pasteurize the carboy by boiling some water and pouring it into the empty carboy. Dump the water out. Pour in the room temperature apple juice. And pour in a yeast packet.
And now comes the hard part: You wait. Fermenting takes a couple weeks. During the fermentation you should see the airlock bubble as the fermentation releases the carbon dioxide. After 10-14 days this should subside. Sediments and the yeast should also be settling to the bottom of the carboy, too (this is called lees.) Wait another couple days, when you can carefully pour the alcohol-apple goodness into some bottles and refrigerate it. Try to pour slowly so the lees stays behind. Others have success siphoning out the drink with a piece of plastic tubing in order to leave the lees behind.
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| It's important to keep the fermenting vessel at a comfortable room temperature. I keep mine in the laundry room, which is slightly warmer than most areas of the house. |
The color of the juice should lighten a bit. Some people say it should clear up, but my juice remained fairly opaque, but was lighter. Initially I thought my first fermentation had failed because of this opacity, but my wife said we should still try it. So we did. And it was tasty!
The alcohol content isn't terribly high--it's limited by the amount of sugar in the apple juice and/or by the fact that yeast naturally stop fermenting when the beverage becomes too alcoholic. Since I was using just straight apple juice, it produced a drink with about 3-4% ABV. Pretty weak, but a good start.
I have more apple juice to ferment, and soon I'll start experimenting with other juices.
I have since bought a couple more carboys and airlocks. I'm fermenting some cider now that has been mixed with about 3/4 cup of brown sugar (in order to boost the alcohol content.)
More can be read about hard cider in America here and here.
