Monitoring (for Re-Racking)

Introduction

Once you’ve started fermenting you’re ready for the next step of my my standard recipe. Monitoring! At this point it’s mostly waiting game.

What To Do

The Simple Way

During this phase you wait for the yeast to do the hard work. There are different methods for determining how long to wait. The first think you want to do is make sure the fermentation is going well. After a few days the airlock should be bubbling.

Once the airlock stops bubbling you can wait a few days and move on to the next steps. This should typically take 10 days to 4 weeks depending on yeast, temperature, and the sugar content of your juice.

Slightly More Complicated

If you want to be more precise, you can take a reading of the specific gravity with a hydrometer and make sure it’s what you expect for the yeast. Generally if you’re going for a dry cider it should be getting close to 1, and less than 1.010 before moving on.

Fancier Options

Jolicoeur takes measurements of the SG throughout this process to measure the rate of fermentation and will sometimes rerack to slow it down if he thinks it’s going too fast. So far I haven’t gone down this route, but it is an option to consider.

Next Steps

Once your brew is fermented, it’s time for re-racking it into a secondary vessel (or if you’re really eager bottle).