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Taste Notes

Not especially funky or tart at end of time in barrel. Later: Tastes like dry white wine or champagne. Fairly tart with tar bite. Vanila and oak flavors fairly obvious. Very dry but still a bit of fruitiness and specificaly apple late in the taste.

Notes

No boil. No sulfates. 4 G of cider from Johnston’s Orchard (variety actually unknown). 1 G of The Apple Farm cider. Used 1# of wildflower honey and 3# of blueberry honey. 2020-10-26: Cider set in brewery to warm up with ambient temp set to 70°F. 2020-10-27: Put 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient in the sanitized 6.5G carboy and added 1G of cider. Poured packet of BE-134 yeast on top of the cider to hydrate. After a little more than half and hour I added 3G more gallons of cider roughly so as to aerate and spread the yeast. Shook carboy to aerate more. Carboy temp 69°F. Added honey and then used portion of final 1G of cider to rinse containers. Shaking containers added more oxygen. Added remainder of final 1G of cider. Agitated carboy vigorously for a few minutes. Recorded OG at 1.063, 10 points below expected (is the honey full dissolved - I would think so but maybe not). Temp in carboy is 68°F and ambient is still 70°F. No heat belt while it kicks off - will allow to free-rise to some extent. 2020-10-28: Steady bubbling with a roughly 4 second period. Temp at 69°F. Off gas smell is sulfery and otherwise unpleasant. 2020-10-29: No warming with fermentation - it just remains steady with no discernable exothermal activity. 2020-11-02: Activity has slowed but is still there. Temp holding steady at 68°F. 2020-11-07: Still bubbling but it’s reasonable slow (11 sec period). A little clean looking krausen on two thirds of the surface. Temp of 68.2°F and Brix at 9 for a SG of 1.018. Wonderful smell and aroma. Honey flavor and a bit of aroma still present and appreciated. It’s ready, or nearly ready, for barrel when I get a chance, maybe after I do the Lambic. 22020-11-12: Still bubbling. Gravity read 7.2 Brix giving an SG of 1.007 - a good drop from last.Tastes awesome! Honey flavor remains. Racked to the Black Swan Barrel - full. For curiosity sake, pH is at 3.54. Solera Lambis, after sitting out a while and only be mildly carbonated in the first place, is at pH 3.69. 2020-11-17: Amazingly, the barrel continues to bubble with a roughly 4 second period. Earlier krausen pushed out through the airlock and I had to clean it a coule of times. No more issue there. 2020-1-21: Bubling continues but very slowly now. It’s finally slowing down! 2021-06-27: Racking to keg 15. Refractometer reads 5.8. FG is therefore 0.999. ABV is 8.5%. Respectable. A little funky but no crazy old barrel flavors. I am very happy with it.