r/mead•
mountainviva

Last minute Cyser... with wild yeast?!

mute the bot

I live in the countryside of Bretagne, France (Brittany as it's known to English speakers) and my neighbor makes cider every year from his grafted apple trees. He usually makes 3 or 4 huge barrels of cider "à l'ancienne", meaning he adds absolutely nothing, just pours the pressed apple juice into the barrels and let's 'em rip. In other words, he relies on the wild yeasts on the apples provide fermentation. I've been totally impressed by the results.. his cider is pretty consistently delicious.

I'd mentioned to him earlier this year that I'd like to make some chouchen, the Breton version of mead, if ever he has some extra juice, and wouldn't you know it he turned up on my doorstep this evening saying that he will have a bunch of extra juice because he got less apples than usual and doesn't have enough to fill a 3rd barrel. He told me he could give me around 20 liters if I want it to make some chouchen. Thing is, I'm not really prepared at all. He has a plastic container (not sure it's certified food safe but it's what he uses to hold the moonshine that he makes with some of his cider every other year), that would hold about 20 L (5.3 gallons-ish). I have two 10 liter glass carboys which I found at a flea market this summer and which will need a thorough cleaning and sterilizing before I use them. On the fly, I decided that my best option would be to do the primary fermentation in his plastic container, and rack to my carboys for the secondary. I told him not to fill the container all the way up, so I'd probably start with around 15 liters (around 4 gallons) of unfiltered, fresh pressed juice.

Without having had time to order supplies, I'm thinking to just wing it. I can't wait too long or the juice will start to ferment on its own, so tomorrow I'll go out and buy about 4 kilos of honey, add it to the plastic container of apple juice, stir it up, and hope for the best! In the meantime I can order some sterilizer for the carboys and some yeast in case I get a stuck fermentation, plus the bungs and airlocks for the carboys that I'll need once it's time to rack to secondary. I don't plan to bother with a hygrometer or anything like that, just do things medieval-style and hope for the best, until I can upgrade my setup.

What an adventure! Let me know how crazy you think this idea is on a scale of 1-10 lmao!

Posted Nov 12, 2024, 8:09 PM UTC

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