tasankovasara

I trust they won’t run out, I’ll surely buy some more in a month’s time (it’s excellent)! I’ll gift one to my dad, had to sample it in advance.

Cheers! Looking good

I’m mulling trying out competing at Sahtimarkkinat in Padasjoki. One of these summers…

Yes, that’s the stuff :D Making sahti is very much a regional thing, it’s not in the tradition everywhere in the country. However, my area is very big on sahti tradition, we have 25 kg bags of malt in many supermarkets to serve the need.

Juniper is supposed to help the sahti keep for longer, as it’s not usually boiled at all. I do a full boil though.

I’m here in Finland, so I used the real deal. It’s a small cube of fresh yeast that costs 30 euro-cents, so 0,15 € for what goes in the brew and the wife can make cinnamon buns with the rest :D I’m making most of my runs with this stuff, since it’s cheap and the flavour really is unique – very soft and mellow.

I’d imagine a hefeweizen yeast is a good substitute.

I made my second cider run recently (one can really only have a go once a year if it’s got to be our own apples!) and it turned out fine. Both runs have had a little bit of beer wort in them too: caramel malts are absolutely my recommendation to try. Makes it ferment better too.

I’d like it stronger (tastewise) though. So an idea has been brewing as the cider has been flowing: could I ‘boil down’ the apple juice without heating it by using a Vevor vacuum chamber and pump? I don’t know if the pump would be happy with water vapour, but since the Vevor kit is only 140 € for 18 liter capacity, I’d really like to try this.

I had the idea to try making just a tea from hops, as I’m sure they’re the happiness-inducing ingredient in beer. Never tried it, but you could now 😊

This could be a game changer. I’ll look into it. My steel fermenter has two posts on the pressure lid and the relief valve can be swapped out for a stiffer one. Would be mad cool to also be able to ‘boil down’ beer worts like that. Thanks for throwing the mad professor a bone 😂

I was thinking of first boiling some juice and getting a taste of how it tastes afterwards. If I like the effect, then ditch the sulfite, heat in a wide kettle to lose a bit of volume, then a quick boil to sanitise…

If the boil test makes it worse, perhaps just keep it on a bit of heat to evaporate. Vacuum would be nice (could be done in my fermenter), but how to get the vapour out seems a bit of a challenge…?

As others have said – there’s nothing more needed than apples and the yeast, but both myself and the yeast like malted grain (probably for different reasons though :D ) so what I’ve done is used up some leftovers and made a small amount of beer wort to go with the ferment. Beer wort is loaded with all the nutrients yeast need to thrive, so it aids the ferment. One could use some yeast nutrient product as well, but this keeps it free of ‘additives’.

The syrup and sugar are really trace amounts in 23 liters, I add them to make the starter go brr. It’s just become a habit to have the syrup in there and I can’t leave it out now. Goes in all of my beer runs too :)

Nope, as I’m going for the minimum of added anything as a bit of an ethos in my brewing. Enzymes are really cool things though. Might try pectinase someday, but evaporating some water to boost flavour is certainly the first thing to try.

Good luck with the apple harvest!

That’s the stuff. Encyclopedic knowledge there on our favourite subject 😅

It did start, but settled at a fairly slow rate of putting out CO2. It has been steady, though. It appears as if much of the pitched yeast has died, and at 16 °C, ~1,8 bar and no oxygen, it won’t multiply.

I looked at my notes from a year ago, then I was using a cider yeast and the active fermentation went on for like 10 days. So again it looks like a long fermentation at this rate. Patience shall be prescribed… And by the third time next year maybe I’ll remember the 24 hour wait 😇

Thank you. I decided to pitch before going to bed for the night, so 14 hours after the Campden clock got started. The yeast in question is a peculiar breed - the ‘sahti’ fresh yeast that I’m fond of - let’s call this an experiment to see how it deals with the situation. It’s the morning after now, no pressure yet, but we’ll see. I have enough for a second pitch in any case.

Condolences, that’s a bummer I can relate to… Apples indeed do not happen every summer, gotta carpe that diem when things go your way.

Can’t but join in the fun. Meet the Egg Mini. Does all sorts of humble servitude, but the coolest thing is a webserver only accessible via Wireguard through HAproxy running on a Digital Ocean droplet.

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