Racking day

I took a chance on wild yeast with the cider that we pressed from neighborhood apples. Big mistake Indy. It smelled nasty and I dumped it in the back yard.

Note to self: Although, I found it nasty, white faced hornets disagreed. For two days, they crawled around my lawn by the hundreds. Next time, I’ll dump it down the drain.

Anyway, since that didn’t work, I went to McConnell’s farm and bought five gallons of cider. I added brewers yeast and started primary fermentation in a 5-gallon pail. Fermentation had slowed, so today I racked (transferred) the fermenting cider to a 5-gallon glass carboy. This leaves much of the dead yeast behind so that the cider will taste better. The carboy (think water cooler jug), has a narrow neck which can be closed with a stopper and an airlock. This way the carbon dioxide produced by the yeast will fill the space above the liquid. This keeps out oxygen and therefore the bacteria that turns hard cider into vinegar.