Introducing the 2011 South Wedge Winery Apple Wine

For some reason, the naming of apple-based beverages is unnecesarily confusing. This led to an awkward conversation between myself and a couple people at a local apple orchard. While trying a sample of their fresh apple cider, the following conversation happend (its very likely that this is not entirely accurate, but thats how I remember it):

Guy at the Cider counter hands me a little cup and I sip from it.
Me: Not bad. Do you guys sell just plain apple juice here?
Guy behind counter looks at me with a befuddled look.
Lady who was arranging produce nearby: I think you can probably get that from Wegmans
Me: I'm just looking for some fresh apple juice that I can use to make hard cider. You don't sell that here?
Guy: This cider will work for that.
Me: But doesn't the cider have spices in it?
Guy: No no. Its just apples pressed this morning and UV pasturized.
Lady: Mulled cider has spices in it.
Jaime: The hot cider is usually spiced, but I don't think cold cider is.
Me: So this cider is nothing but apples? No sugar or anything added?
Guy: Its just apples pressed this morning and pasturized with UV light. Nothing added. Most apple juice is heat pasturized so that is why it looks different from cider. Ours is UV pasturized so it keeps the extra flavor.
Me: Ok, thank you.
I purchase two gallons and meekly retreat away, ashamed of my lack of cider knowledge.

So after a little internet research, I have learned the following about apple beverages:
Apple Cider: Fresh pressed apples, only coarsely filtered, usually heat pasturized for contamination control
Apple Juice: Cider that has been very well filtered and pasturized. Hot Cider: Apple cider that has mulling spices added and then is heated.
Hard Cider: Apple juice or apple cider that has been intentionally fermented
Apple Brandy: Distilled hard cider
Apple Jack: Same thing as apple brandy, though, interestingly, it used to be distilled by fractional freezing and removing the ice crystals, which would make it technically not a brandy
Apple Schnapps: A neutral-flavored malt-based spirit flavored with apple juice or apple flavoring and usually has extra sugar added.
Apple Wine: Nothing is really called apple wine.....until now.

Maybe I'm the only one who is confused by all this, but it seems like a terrible naming scheme. After all, apple cider and apple juice are pretty much the same thing, and hard cider is really just apple wine. Ugh. Well, I'm going to call the stuff I'm making apple wine.

I currently have two different kinds of yeast. One is bread yeast, and I'm pretty sure that would make some pretty gross flavors in the wine, so I'm not going to use that. The other is a wine yeast (actually a champagne yeast) capable of fermenting to 14+% alcohol. Most commercial hard cider either uses a beer yeast which typically can't ferment past about 6% or (more likely) use a stronger yeast but shock it with a preservative to halt fermentation at the desired alcohol percentage. Most commercial hard ciders are also way sweeter than I'd like. The best ones I've had were considered very dry (less residual sugar), so I think the champagne yeast should work out well. It should convert nearly all of the sugar into alcohol.

I expected that my apple wine might be able to reach 7-8% alcohol, but to my surprise, the hydrometer reading (measuring the approximate sugar content) showed a potential alcohol content of 12%. Well, this could be some interesting wine!

I did add two things besides yeast. I added a 1/2 tsp of "yeast nutrient" which was described to me as vitamins for the yeast since they use up a lot of the stuff that they need in the grape/apple juice. Also, I added about 15 drops of a solution of pectic enzyme. Its often used to help break down fruit mashes and release more juice/flavor. It should also help to break down any pectin in the juice and help to clarify it. I've had the pectic enzyme laying around for the last couple years because I was at a wine making store and figured that I might want to make some fruit wine at some point in the future.

Rather than go through the whole ordeal of sanitizing a bunch of fermentation equipment, I decided to try a less formal fermentation process that I saw online a while ago. I fermented it in the one-gallon plastic jug that it came in. To make an airlock, I used a balloon stretched over the top. I put a pin-hole in the balloon, and as the fermentation produces CO2, the balloon stretches just enough to let the CO2 out of the pin-hole, but doesn't let any oxygen in. Seems like a pretty good quick-and-dirty type approach. Here is what it looks like just after putting the balloon on.


Here is what it looks like after about 12 hours. Fermentation is already moving along pretty good at this point. The airlock seemed to work pretty well.