You guys remembered the Apfelwein (Apple Wine) I am making about 2 weeks back? Well, today I went to check it and realize that it is rather quiet. It has been fermenting furiously for the past 2 weeks like nobody’s business. The airlock was bubbling crazily. However for the last 2 to 3 days, nothing seems to be going on in the must. Silence. Well, this is definitely a good thing. It means that the majority of the primary fermentation is complete. For those who don’t understand, it means that the yeast in the must have finished eating the sugars and converting it to alcohol. But does that mean that it is complete?

No! It is not! To make good alcoholic drinks like beer and wine (most of the time anyway), we should let it age for a while. Why? Well, first of all, if you don’t, the beer/wine will taste green. There will be a slight sourish flavour. And if you are making wine (with a much higher alcoholic content than beer), the alcohol will give your wine a very strong alcohol bite which can taste rather bad. If you allow the beer or the wine to age properly before consumption, you will find the taste smoother and more complex. This is the result of the yeast, after eating away all the basic sugars, will then proceed to consume the more complex sugars which will produce a more “complex” beer/wine. The yeast will also clean up after itself, eating away it’s own by-products which would normally taste unpleasant. And yes, this is definitely desirable. I have always felt that aging really helps the final product. I had an Australian Pale Ale which was aged for 5 months before I had a taste and it was the best I ever tried.

So I will be bottling this Apfelwein when it is ready. From what I read from the forums, it should take about 4 weeks in total for it to ferment in the primary. And after that, I will bottle it and let it age again for another month or so before drinking.  However, I am not sure whether I should carbonate it or not? I wanted it to taste like a real wine but I am afraid that it would be too bland without the fuzziness. Well, I will cross the bridge will I reach it. No point worrying about it now.