Apfelwein

I lurk around the home brew talk forums a lot and found that a number of people had something called Apfelwein listed in their signatures as something in the works. Curiosity took hold and I gave it a google and ended up finding a recipe and description... also on the home brew talk forums.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/man-i-love-apfelwein-14860/

It's pretty much described as a very dry cider of German origin. And, like many things, is an acquired takes a little bit getting used to, 2-3 glasses that is... o_O

I scaled the recipe down for 4.2L of juice, why 4.2L? Cause that's what 4 cans of Allens apple juice came out to and I didn't see the point in buying another for only 300ml.

4.2L Allens Pure Apple juice (4 cans)
204g cane sugar (should have been 201g, I over poured and didn't want to bother with 3g of sugar)
1 packet Lalvin EC-1118 yeast
1 4.5L glass jug

I re-hydrated the yeast in about 200ml of juice and had intended to leave it for only 10 minutes. But it took me longer to clean the jug and mix the juice and sugar so it ended up being 20 minutes. I funneled the sugar into the jug and then poured two cans of the juice on top of it. I then capped and shook until the sugar appeared to be mixed. Next I added the remaining two cans, capped again and gave it a quick swirl. Then took a hydro sample, pitched the yeast, swirled and airlocked.

The gravity came out to be around 1.056 and with the EC-1118 should ferment out to .999 or so. Which should make it a good 7.3% abv. I was aiming for closer to 8% so I think that the next time I do this I'll toss in another 50-100g of sugar.

Also here is the math for the down scaling, one gram of sugar equals 20.895ml of liquid. Writing this here now I realize that I should have taken a gravity reading of the juice before adding the sugar. But oh well :P.

See below for an image of the apfelwein about 3 hours after pitching, the little yeasties hard at work.