Well, I had just finished bottling my Mexican Cerveza and I had thought that this was it for the day. So I went out to the local supermarket to purchased some bottles of apple juice for the Apfelwein (Hard Apple Cider). I didn’t expect to be buying over 16 litres of juice in one shot! There were offers everywhere! I couldn’t believe it. First I went to Shop N Save and they had offers on Cyprina Apple Juice and I got 6 packs. Then I went to Sheng Siong, they had offers for Just Juice Apple Juice. I got 10 bottles of apple juice from them. And it was a big saving, about S$3 per 2 packets of 1 litre Just Juice. Normally, it would cost about S$2 per pack from most supermarkets. I was lucky to find such a deal today. Anyway, I guess I got a little carried away and I bought all the 10 bottles of Just Juice.  I had to take 3 seperate trips to the supermarket, which was actually quite near. But you have to understand, carrying 5/6 bottles (16litres in total) of apple juice is not as easy as seems. Okay, okay, I am weak.

In all, the actual “brewing” process took about an hour to complete. First I had to open up the bottles of apple juice, then pour the apple juice carefully into the fermenter, add dextrose, yeast and cinnamon sticks to the fermenter and then wait for it to complete fermentation. The problem with brewing with apple juice is well….the apple juice. It attracts insects easily so you have to be careful when you are pouring the juice into the fermenter. You certainly don’t want any apple juice to the spill on the fermenter or on the floor/table. But in all seriousness, pouring apple juice into the fermenter and not spilling any is impossible. This is because the opening on the juice pack is never perfect and thus when you pour, the juice tends to come out in spurts and this will easily result in spilling.

Anyway, enough of my whining, I will post the pictures of the Apfelwein brewing process.

Yes, these are the ingredients for making the Apfelwein.  That’s 6 litres of Cyprina Apple Juice, 10 litres of Just Juice Apple Juice and 8 litres of Ceres Apple Juice. The brown sticks are the cinnamon stick while the green package is the Cote des Blanc yeast. Oh, the small bottle is the yeast nutrients. I forgot to take photo of the dextrose. And I was told that this picture with so many packets of apple juice looks like some primary school lunch hall.

Well, this is the photos of the 1kg of dextrose. From what I am told, the alcohol content of a fermented apple juice is about 5-6%. So, if I add 1kg of dextrose, the final product will yield about 8% ABV. Isn’t it cool?

Yes, these are the Cote des Blancs yeast. As you can see from the photo, I am using 2 packets of yeast instead of 1. I am looking forward to the yeast having a head-start when they are producing alcohol, so why not 2 packs of yeast. The bottle with the $3.00 sign is the Yeast nutrients. These wonderful stuff will ensure that I get a healthy and vigourous fermentation so that we can get clean tasting alcohol without any off-flavours. We hate off-flavours here.

Cinnamon sticks. How many of you guys like Cinnamon Buns? If so, then I am sure that by adding some Cinnamon sticks into the brew, I will get a cider with some cinnamon sweetness, aroma and flavour.  I guess the main reason why I am adding the cinnamon stick is because the apple cider is just too tart and I am sure that most casual drinkers don’t like their wine too tart.

Yes, this is the Ceres Apple Juice I have been talking about. No sugar added 100% pure apple juice. I need to complain about NTUC and their way of handling apple juice boxes, they need to handle it with care. All the boxes I bought were dented at one side.

Yes, we are correct. It is made from pure apple juice. Wow, there is added Vitamin C and nature identical flavourant.Healthy!

Cyprina 100% Natural Apple juice. Nice packaging by the way.

Oh, this is made from apple concentrates. Too bad they don’t add any extra Vitamin C.  And why are they the most expensive of them all?

Just Juice Apple Juice. Really cheap this one. 2 for S$3. I don’t think that we can find any other brands which is so cheap out there. Only at Sheng Siong. I think Sheng Siong gets its supplies from Malaysia and this Just Juice is manufactured in Malaysia.

If I am not wrong, this is made from apple concentrates. Apparently Just Juice buys apple concentrates from somewhere and then add water and sell them as Just Juice Apple Juice.

Well, this is me attempting to rehydrate the Cote des Blancs yeast. Actually it is just a picture of a bottle half filled with water. Not too sure why did I take a photo of this.

Oh, this is  correct photo of me rehydrating the yeast. Made a big mistake by not sprinkling the yeast over the entire surface of the water and thus, we are seeing clumps of yeast whichstill may not get rehydrated.

Okay, as you can see above, I have filled the fermenter with all the 24 bottles of apple juice. It was tough work and I deserved a drink. Notice the foam? Well for your information, it was caused by those stupid small uneven openings of the packets of apple juice. Not too sure whether this will caused excessive oxidation to the juice.

Now after adding the dextrose (which dissolved pretty easily), the yeast nutrients and the cinnamon stick, I pitch the yeast and cover the fermenter. Notice that I didn’t have an airlock on. I am going to let it breathe for a few hours first before I attach the airlock. This is what Wine makers normally do. So, I guess why not try it here. Should have some good effects on the wine at the end.

And thanks for reading. I am going to let this ferment for about 4 weeks or so. Then hopefully, we are going to have yet another great tasting alcoholic beverage to enjoy.

PS: By the next day morning, the apfelwein has started bubbling. The sweet smell of apple juice fills the entire room! Ahhh….life is great!

If you guys don’t know what those are for, you haven’t been reading this blog. LOL! It is meant for making some delicious hard apple cider - Apfelwein. Yes, after the little taste test by my friends, it has been a great hit. Now everyone is asking me to make them some. So being a great guy, I am very much obliged to make Apfelwein for them. And I am fully booked till Christmas as making the Apfelwein requires quite a lot time waiting for it to ferment and mature.If you aren’t into homebrewing, you will not understand the time and the effort needed to get the correct temperature for making the Apfelwein. It seems easy enough, but remember, getting 24 litres of Apple Juice back home within a car is very tedious. And I am getting old.

Anyway, the main reason why I bought the Ceres Apple Juice is because NTUC is having offer for the Ceres brand. So it cost about S$1.80 per 1 litre pack of juice. That is much cheaper than the usual price of S$2.10. Remember, I will be making 24 litres of the cider, so the amount saved is quite signifcant. However, I will definite not limit myself to just the Ceres Apple Juice. The reason is because I am afraid that just using one brand of apple juice, I might not get the correct taste for my Apfelwein. Might be too sour or too bitter depending on the type of juice used. So it would be more prudent to use 2 or 3 different brands of apple juice, like what I did before and hope that the different flavours will mask out the unpleasant ones. I think another brand which I will be using should be the VeCool Fuji Apple Juice as well as Harvey Fresh Apple Juice.  I really like the Harvey Fresh Apple Juice. It taste very “appley” and even though there is no sugar added, it taste quite sweet. It is made from crushed apples, unlike the rest of the Apple Juice which are usually made from Apple Concentrate. The VeCool Fuji Apple Juice is another great choice because it is supposed to be made from Fuji Apples, which is one of my favourite fruits. I just love Fuji Apples!

And this time, I will be making all of the Apfelwein carbonated. Unless the resulting Apfelwein is going to be sweet, there is no other way about it, especially when we are talking about those “wines” made from juices. There will always be some residual sourness in the cider if you ferment it dry and although it is not really extremely unpleasant, it can be be considered as an off-flavour. And not everyone likes sour. So, the fizz will help mask the sourness. Furthermore, carbonation helps to bring out the aroma of the apple cider. I never considered myself any expert in ciders, but I have to agree that drinking ciders carbonated is a lot better than drinking a still cider.

Well guys, if you remember about 2 months back, I made the Apfelwein (Apple Wine), which is actually a hard apple cider. It is supposed to be some sort of German style of cider which is easy to drink and extremely refreshing. This kind of drink is exactly what we need right here in Singapore. The weather is warm, dusty and with a cool refreshing alcoholic beverage, life can be good. And so I made the Apfelwein for my friends to enjoy.

So two days ago, I bought a few bottles of the 2 month old brew to them to have a taste test. I had expected them to dislike it. First of all, it has a slight sourish aftertaste, which is typical of most ciders. Secondly, it is made from apple juice and it has that apple aroma which a lot of Singaporean drinkers don’t like. They would prefer bitterness than sourness in their alcohol drink. But I was pleasantly surprised that they love it and some of them asked me to make more for them to enjoy during the Chinese New Year holidays. Being a kind and generous person, I said of course I would make for them. The Apfelwein recipe is very easy. Just apple juice, some dextrose and yeast. If you have all the necessary equipment to brew, you should have no problems making this Apfelwein. No boiling, no fuss. Just a lot of apple juice, a little patience and you will have great tasting apple cider to enjoy.

Anyway, it is important to know how to drink the Apfelwein. This beverage should be drank cold. Preferly ice cold. I am sure that most of us don’t like the residual sourness of the apples. If the drink is ice cold, the sourness will not be so profound as the distract the drinker. Plus with carbonation, the aroma of the apples will help musk any sourness. Yes, that means that it should be carbonated and cold when served. Next, you should drink it straight up. You fill your glass to the top with the Apfelwein. In one shot drink about 1/2 of the drink. Rest for like 5 seconds and then drink the rest. After this, you should stop for a while and feel the kick of the potent Apfelwein and you will suddenly feel the Apflewein flunging itself into your senses. Beware, it can creep up to you suddenly so don’t  drink too much. Oh, since this is a cider, you should be prepared for a painful hangover the next morning. I have tried to reduce the hangover effect by ensuring that there is less impurities in the cider, so as some of you guys might know, it is not easy when dealing with apples. Apples unlike malt (for making beer) lacks the necessary nutrients for making a healthy brew, so it is very important to add some yeast nutrients to the must. And keep the temperature on the lower range so as not to create any off-flavours and impurities.

Okay, those Edwort’s Apfelwein have been sitting in my cupboard for about a month now, getting all carbonated and maturing as we speak. However, I took one out and had a little taste test yet again. I am sure that after maturing for a month, the flavour should have changed quite significantly compared to the first time I took a taste test. And I wasn’t disappointed. The taste of the Apfelwein was definitely better than before.

I was told one of the most important thing about hard ciders is to ensure that there is good carbonation. This will really bring out the apple flavours in the cider. They were right. With bubbles you can really taste the “appley” flavour coming out of the cider. Previously when I tried a sample, it wasn’t fully carbonated thus the cider had a less profound apple flavour but now, it was just great. Only problem is that the sourish aftertaste still remains. Perhaps it is the apple juice I had used for this cider. If the original apple juice is sour, then I am pretty sure there will still be some residual sour taste in the end. Too bad. I hadn’t tried drinking all of the apple juice I used so I have no idea whether some of the juice had been sour. Anyway, those are all without any sugar added, so some sourish flavour should be expected from natural apple juice. If you have been drinking apple juice which tasted very sweet, then most likely they have either artifical sugar added or pear juice added. I have seen some Japaneseapple juice which tasted rather sweet and they do add pear juice into the mix.

And the bitterness I felt in the end from my previous brew is now gone! Hooray. I had thought that this bitterness would not fade but surprisingly it did. Perhaps the carbonation helped masked the bitterness. The end result is that the Apfelwein was extremely refreshing and I like it much better now. Hopefully it will get even better with more aging. However, I think it is now ready for mass drinking with my friends. Good times ahead!

Yes, I finally opened a bottle of my Edwort’s Apfelwein and took a real sample. For all that is worth, the taste was pretty okay and considering that it has only been in the bottle for 1 week, I am sure that it will get better. And the carbonation was a bit too little. I am rather surprised to find the Apfelwein has too little carbonation, felt like it was a still wine. The PET bottle I use to contain the Apfelwein was rather firm when I pressed on it but alas, there will still very little carbonation. And the bubbles that were formed will quickly disappear. I believe that it is because unlike beer, apple cider doesn’t retain bubbles since it has very little body just like sparkling apple juice!

For the taste, I have to say it is like between a cider and a plum wine. You can definitely feel the sourish aftertaste at the back of your tongue when you drink it and there will always be a slight bitterness at the edge. Not too sure how to put it correctly, but it is like after eating something sour and at the end of it you bite the seed (which is usually bitter) like of feeling. Not very sure whether I like it. But from what more experienced had said, you will need to drink about 3 glasses or more before you can pass any judgement on this Apfelwein. But I really doubt that I have the ability to drink 3 glasses straight! Probably get drunk before the second glass. And not to mention, a massive headache the next day. Wuhahaha, don’t you just hate to have that intense headache when you wake up in the morning. Seems that apple ciders will provide a lot of impurities which will cause those hangovers.

Well, please enjoy the following pictures:

Yes, you can see a little carbonation. But that’s about it. And when you drink the cider, you don’t feel the fizziness at all. This pictures was taken just moments after I pour the Apfelwein onto the glass and there is just a few little bubbles left.

Another view of the Apfelwein. The colour is actually quite nice. You can’t really see it from this picture but the colour is beautifully golden. By the time I took this picture, there is hardly any carbonation left.

Yet another view.

I am not too sure of what to make of this. I will probably keep this aged for about a few more weeks and then crack open a bottle and have yet another test of the wine. Yes, I am sure it will get better with age. Hopefully.

Well, I just bottled my Apfelwein yesterday morning. It has been in the fermenter for about 3 weeks already. Yes, I had said that I wanted it to ferment for 4 weeks but due to the fact that next week I will most probably be very busy, I decided to bottle it yesterday. I must say, it was definitely fun. This is the first time I ever done a Apple cider (or Apple Wine) so I was not very sure about all the steps in bottling. But luckily, it was pretty smooth, except the problem with several of the clear bottles which couldn’t be easily capped with the capper I had bought.

I had bottled most of them in the PET bottles (just like for beer) and several in clear 330ml bottles as well as a few in wine bottles. The ones I bottled in the wine bottles will not be carbonated as the wine bottles cannot handle carbonation. All the rest will be fizzy, just like I like it. Yes, I will have to age them for a few more months before I can drink them. When I tasted a sample, the flavour is a bit too harsh, probably because of the high alcohol content in the wine. And it didn’t have the apple flavour I had expected it to have. Worse of all, I did find some buttery aftertaste which is a bit of a turn off. I was warned in the beer brewing about this buttery taste due to the Cote des Blancs yeast, but there wer some in the forum who said that the yeast can produce a very smooth wine. Perhaps they were talking about a few months down the road?

Anyway, I have taken a few photos of the bottled Apfelwein and you can take a look at them below

That’s the Apfelwein in clear glass bottles. Too bad, my capper cannot work for some of these bottles.

That’s two bottles of Apfelwein in glass bottles. The red stuff with handles is the corker used to cork the wine bottles. Basically what you have to do is the put the wooden cork in the “squeezer” and then squeeze it by pushing the two handles together till the cork is small enough. Then you place the corker on the glass bottle and push the handle down to “insert” the cork into the wine bottles. Takes a lot of strength and some good balancing skill but it is doable. Hehehe, if I can do it, most of you sure could. I am skinny and weak remember?

Another view of the Apfelwein in green glass bottles. Well, I am patient enough to leave these Apfelweins alone for a few months and forget about them.Then I will go and have a taste again. Hopefully it will turn out drinkable. I really hate to waste so much of my effort, time and money to make this Apfelwein and nobody is willing to drink them. Let’s keep our fingers cross.

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.

How many of you guys heard before of Glutinous Rice Wine or Jiuniang? It is an traditional Chinese alcoholic drink made from fermenting glutinous rice and it is supposed to be very healthy and nutritious. I have been told that mothers are given small amounts of the rice wine to built up resistant and good health after birth during confinement. Not sure whether this is really that true or not, but who am I to argue with tradition? I mean, if someone gives you alcohol (a sweet nice tasting one at that), why complain? Just drink it. I guess a lot of Singaporean Chinese are just a bit obsessed with this confinement thing, which I think is a bit ridiculous. I mean, what’s the difference between staying in a hot, stinking room and going outside where the air should be much fresher and cleaner other than being allowed to drink rice wine eh?

Well, I have been thinking of making some Glutinous rice wine myself. And from what I read, it isn’t that difficult at all. The recipe just calls from Glutinous rice which is cooked (with a steamer) and allowed to cool. Then after transferring the rice to a fermentation vessel, yeast is added to it. After which a few days later, you will get Glutinous rice wine! It is a cloudy slightly sweet stuff. However, I heard that if you do it this way (without some sort of mold to help convert the rest of the starch to sugar), you will get less alcohol. It should hit about 8% ABV. I believe that if you use the mold (Koji) to help convert the starch in the rice to sugar, you will get a stronger drink. Of couse it will take much longer due to the time it takes to convert starch to sugar by the mold and the corresponding time taken to convert the extra sugars to alcohol.

Oh, and if you are into cooking, this rice wine is used in many Chinese recipes. If you have eaten rice wine chicken or any of those food stuck full with the wine, you will definitely appreciate the wine. Luckily in Singapore, we often have the opportunity to taste such dishes as they are pretty common here. Delicious! Even with the poor quality of food served in Singapore nowadays,the rice wine seems to help camouflage the poor quality chicken and help bring out the exotic aroma of the dish. And when I say it is delicious, I mean it. Once you tasted dishes cooked with rice wine, you will never forget the taste.

The sad part about all these is that not many Singaporeans drink this. When I visit the alcohol beverages section of the local supermarkets, I seldom see rice wine being sold. Yes, there are sake available but even those are few. I guess that is surprising as what the current Japanese craze in Singapore, sake is not even popular. Chinese Rice Wine is usually found in the cooking section of the supermarket.  Well…

This is just a quick update on the Apfelwein which I am attempting to make. The Apfelwein is currently bubbling happily in the fermentor, which is a good sign. However, it gave me quite a shock yesterday because the must initially had no reaction from adding the yeast. Normally for beer brewing, in just a few hours (the most is like 5 hours) the yeast will start to produce krusen and you can see foam exploding on the wort. But in this case, it was dead quiet for the entire day. Nothing at all. In the evening when I checked the must, I was really surprised. I was then tempted to go and add more yeast into the must as I thought that something was wrong. But luckily, I decided not to. I knew that the Cote des Blancs yeast was a slow fermenter and it probably would take longer for it to get ready to ferment. I was right. Just that I didn’t know it would take so damn long for it to be ready.

This morning when I woke up, I saw small bubbles forming on the must. Unlike the krusen you see when you brew beer, they are just like oily slick bubbles being produced and some of them are floating on the surface of the must. And by afternoon time, it was bubbling strongly. Thank the gods!  You should see the smile I have on my face when I came back to see the airlock bubbling happily away. The only thing I found funny is the smell. I can’t detect any alcohol coming from the airlock, only the sweetness of the apple juice. I had expected some alcoholic aroma but none is detected even when I put my nose close to the airlock.

Maybe it is because the majority of the must still consist of apple juice? And when the carbon dioxide is being forced out, the apple juice smell escapes along with it? And it just a few weeks time, I will be smelling alcohol only? Well, I think that would be the most likely case. The good thing is that I didn’t smell any sulfur, which a lot of brewers complained about. I really don’t think that my neighbours would care to smell sulfur whenever they open their windows for some fresh air. Anyway, it will probably take a few more weeks for the Apfelwein to complete it’s fermentation and for me to start bottling the wine. I will update you guys when I am done. Take care!

27/8/2008 Update: Bubbling very furiously now. The bubbles the yeast creates are pretty massive now. Looks like everything is fine. Vigourous fermentation is good. I have also kept the temperature about 20°C which should be healthy for the yeast.

Hi there, it is Saturday and this is the day that I will be making my first wine. Well, hopefully it will turn out like wine. For my first try, I will be doing a very simple Apple Wine and the recipe consists of just apple juice which you can easily find in the local stores.However, the apple juice must not contain any preservatives or it will not work as the preservatives will kill off the yeast before it can convert the sugars to alcohol. So, if you are thinking of making your own wine with the juice, the first thing you must look out for is whether there is any preservatives in the juice. I have purchased the apple juice from either Shop n Save or NTUC and in all, it cost me about S$50. Quite reasonable for a wine, right? I also took advantage of any offers when I purchased the juice, so I managed to save a little more. Note that this will be more like a Cider than a real wine, you will need to expect some cidery aftertaste. The word “Apfelwein” is German and thus not to be taken literally.

The recipe for the Apple Wine (Apfelwein) is as follows:

1. 5 litres Ceres Apple Juice
2. 5 litres Marigold Apple Juice
3. 5 litres Harvey Fresh Apple Juice
4. 5 litres VeGood Fuji Apple Juice
5. 4 litres Cyprina Apple Juice
6. 1kg Dextrose
7. 2 pieces Cinnamon sticks
8. Cotes des Blancs Yeast 5 grams (2 packs)

Yes, the recipe is that simple! Everything except the yeast can be found in your local supermarket. You can substitute the glucose for dextrose if you can’t find it. You can purchase the yeast online from eBay. It took about 8 days for the yeast to arrive and it cost like S$13 for 10 packs. Much much cheaper than if you purchased from the local home brew store. But the advantage of buying from the local homebrew store is that the yeast should be viable. Remember, if you buy the yeast from online stores, they will have to travel long distances through harsh weathers to reach you. So the freshness and the quality of the yeast is not assured. However, for me, I took the risk and bought 10 packs from a store on eBay. Their URL is The Bruhaus.

I guess some of you guys might be more interested in the pictures. Well, without further ado, I will start with the pictures!

Aha! All the ingredients necessary to make Apfelwein (except the yeast)! We have 24 litres of no-preservatives apple juice, 1 kg of dextrose as well as cinnamon sticks.

Ceres Apple Juice. That’s right, it is 100% pure apple juice. The colour of the Apple Juice in the picture is much lighter than the colour of the actual apple juice I pour from the pack. What gives?

Cyprina Apple Juice. Yes, again it is 100% natural apple juice. The most costly of the lot. It is about S$2.25 per pack. Smells extremely nice!

Marigold Apple 100% juice. Marigold, probably one of the most famous brands in Singapore. Everywhere you turn, you will see some sort of advertisement from Marigold. Not sure whether this is a good thing or not, but it was on offer when I went to the store a few days back. I got it for S$1.65 per 1 litre pack. Pretty cheap. And surprisingly, it smells quite nice too.

Ya, it’s the VeGood Fuji Apple Juice. It comes with “100% Vitamin C  Daily Intake*”. Not sure what that means? Well, that makes both of us. Anyway, I read through the package and it comes without any preservatives, so this will go into the must as well. However, I didn’t smell any of the Fuji apple sweetness when I poured the juice out.

Harvey Fresh 100% crushed apple juice. I tasted this apple juice before and it tasted damn great. Probably one of the best tasting apple juice I have ever tried before. Not sure how it will as a wine though.

That’s 1 kg of dextrose! Yes, this will ensure that anyone drinking the Apfelwein will be drunk in warp speed. Come on, don’t tell me that you drink wine to become more sober? That’s like “jumping off from a 25 storey building because you want to touch the sky”!

From what I read, the resulting Apfelwein will be pretty dry and tart, so adding a few sticks of cinnamon into the fermenter will ensure that there will at least be some sweetness.

Yes, it is Cinnamon Stick.

Sorry for the blurred pictures. Not too sure what happened. Maybe I got too excited when I was doing the wine. That’s two packets of Cote des Blancs dry wine yeast.

That’s me rehydrating the yeast. Just use a sanitized container, add some clean water and then pour the packets of yeast into the water. Give it a gentle stir and allow it to rest. Oh, you will need to cover it as well so as to prevent bacteria or other spores from contaminating the yeast. You don’t want that to happen!

After about 25 minutes of pouring the apple juice into the fermentor, I am all done. Took me quite a while because I wanted to ensure that the juice is not split out so I poured slowly.

A close up view of the must. Well, the colour is not what I expected but, hey it should be correct. I really doubt that there is anything which can go wrong with the recipe. Perhaps that’s just the colour of a lot of apple juice.

After pouring in the rehydrated yeast, I then cover the fermentor and will allow it to ferment for about 4 weeks. Hopefully by then it will become a hard cider and kick a lot of drinkers’ asses. I am keeping my fingers cross. I will also be spending a lot of time sniffing the airlock. I read that this will give off a lot of sulfur which reminds people of “rhino farts”. Hopefully since I have added to the must some yeast nutrients, there won’t be any “rhino farts”. Don’t want the neighbours complaining.

And this is the end of my first Wine Making adventure. I will keep you guys informed about the outcome of this Apfelwein. Please take note that the original recipe was taken from Edwort’s award winning Apfelwein recipe. Basically it is the same except with the different apple juice as well as yeast. Credit goes to Edwort.