Apfelwein!

I wanted to brew a new beer this week, but I'm moving in a few months and figured the less bottles I have to move the better. To curb my desire, I looked into making some Apfelwein. The process is simple: grab a gallon of apple juice, raise the gravity with some cane sugar, and throw an airlock on top. This can be scaled up or down to whatever batch size you're doing, and it doesn't require time consuming boils or cleanup. I wanted to start fermenting last Sunday, but my LHBS was closed until Tuesday. Then I remembered I had saved some of the yeast from my Belgian beer when I racked it. I didn't expect to ever use it, but it was there, so I threw it into a gallon of TreeTop brand apple juice. It took a little more than a day to see airlock activity. I didn't know how much sugar to add, and arbitrarily put 1 cup of cane sugar in, brining the OG to 1.080. This might be a little high, but we'll see. Interestingly, there is almost no krausen. I couldn't help but trying some today and it is tangy and delicious. So delicious, in fact, that I had to go get a couple more gallons and some more yeast. I got a second gallon of TreeTop and a gallon of the more expensive Martinelli's. I picked up some Lalvin EC-1118 yeast (recommended at LHBS) and repeated Sunday's procedure (though with more attention to cleanliness). Sweetened these to 1.062 and 1.068. I also got some Fermaid-K, which is a yeast nutrient, and some campden tablets, which kills off-flavor producing wild yeast and bacteria. Not sure if I'll use the tablets. Can't wait to see how this turns out - it should be a couple weeks before it's drinkable - I'll try to bottle some of it to see how it ages. Here's a shot of the Apfelwein.