Racked Over a Cider and a Stout

Cider and transfer-to carboy

Last night I racked over a cider and a stout to secondary fermenters.  I started the cider four weeks ago.  I bought the cider at an orchard near my home where they had fresh-pressed it from apples grown there.  It was very good cider (sweet with a lot of flavor) before I started fermenting it.  I placed 4.5 gallons into a glass carboy with a packet of Red Star Cotes  des Blancs yeast.  I also didn't kill off the native yeasts.

The cider fermentation was both literally and figurative ALIVE!  A foam would form on top and then dissipate and then reform, and the bubbler was active with a lot of CO2 off-gassing.  The turbid cider gradually clarified as the yeast flocculated ending with a significant yeast cake at the bottom of the carboy and clearer liquid.  I was pretty surprised at how dry it was when I taste-tested a little.  It had a nice nose and good apple flavor but no sweetness.  I will try to "add-back" a little of the sugar to provide a little sweetness after this secondary fermentation.

The second brew that I racked over was a vanilla-bourbon stout.  I had purchased the kit more than a year ago.  I had also purchased the yeast when I purchased the kit.  I had set out to start this kit in September, but when I started the yeast, it wasn't viable (it had gone through a year of abuse in our refrigerator).  I am glad that I started with a yeast starter, because if I hadn't, I wouldn't have known the yeast was dead.  I would have wasted an entire batch.  Take-two of launching this brew went better (after I purchased a second yeast packet).  The malt (sugar content) of this brew is higher than I have ever tried before.  The kit included a lot of dark malts to steep, a pound of oatmeal, two packages of malt extract and corn sugar that was added to the wort.

Stout yeast-cake

Brewing went pretty well, but it took about 6-7 hours (including clean up).  I pitched the yeast on a Sunday three weeks ago.  It took off nicely with some vigorous CO2 evolution, but after a week the rate was already slowing.  I left it in the primary fermenter for three weeks, but I was a little worried that the fermentation had stalled out.  I was really happy to see a significant yeast cake when I racked this brew over to the secondary fermenter carboy.

Brews in their secondary fermenters

Both of these brews will sit for at least the next four weeks before I do anything else with them.   They are sitting and slowly evolving a little more CO2 down in my basement.  Both taste-tested very nicely at this point.   I think the stout will be really good.  It has a nice malty character without overbearing hops.  The kit also contained oak wood-chips and vanilla beans that I soaked in bourbon for about a year.  The oak chips and vanilla beans were added to the secondary fermenter, so the brew should pick up bourbon and vanilla notes from the wood chips.  During bottling I am supposed to add 32 ounces of cold-brewed coffee to the bottling carboy.  At the end there will be a lot going on with this stout.  I will take them both into work on Monday to gauge ABV.  The photo here is a picture of both brews in their secondary fermenters.