Batch 193: Whistlin' Wooden Teeth (Persimmon Cyser)
12/22/19: As of this writing, I've only done the prep work of making and freezing the juice. I haven't made the batch nor decided what it's going to be, although I'm tending towards a persimmon cider. Suggestions welcome! As with the two prior batches, I'm calling dibs on a batch number just to get the writeup started.
I started the actual batch on 3/31/20, one of my quarantine brews during the COVID-19 pandemic. I decided to make this a cider. The name of the batch is courtesy of Patrick, who suggested said name for a George Washington-themed IPA during a date at our old local, the Mercury Lounge in Goleta, many blissful years ago.
Ingredients in this batch
- 3 lbs 10 oz Fuyu persimmons
- 1 gallon Big B's organic fall harvest cider
- 1.5 gallons regular Kroger apple juice
- Scant 1/4 tsp Wyeast beer nutrient
- 1 pack SafCider yeast
- 1/4 tsp Fermaid O, added on 4/5/20
- 2 lbs Kirkland clover honey, added on 5/17/20
- 1 lb Kirkland clover honey, added on 6/11/20
Process
On 12/22, I juiced 3 lbs 10 oz of fresh persimmons. This yielded one small upright IKEA tupperware's worth (it's a real metric now, OK?) of electric orange goop, which I froze.
On 3/31, I dumped a gallon of each apple juice in a 2-gallon bucket, aerated briefly, and added the beer nutrient and hydrated yeast. No Fermaid O at this time, since we were fresh out. I plan to add the persimmon juice in secondary, which means either moving to a 3-gallon container or finding another use for about 1/2 gallon of freshly fermented apple juice. Win-win. I added a little Fermaid O on 4/5, once the Amazon package came in.
On 4/14, I transferred the cider to a 3-gallon container as planned and added the thawed persimmon juice. This left way more headspace than needed, so I also added another half gallon of Kroger apple juice. The yeast came right back and began fermenting again, and the cider is now a pleasing bright orange color.
On 5/17, a tasting revealed the cider to be wayyyyy too dry. I backsweetened with 2 pounds of plain Kirkland clover.
On 6/11, I tasted and found that batch dried out to tastelessness again. (That SafCider is a beast.) I backsweetened with another pound of trusty Kirkland clover, which restored the flavor nicely. I didn't see any further fermentation.
I bottled this batch on 8/16. While it seemed too dry and even oddly tart during earlier tastings, my tasting that day showed that the batch had balanced itself back out nicely, and I chose not to backsweeten again after all. I added carbonation drops to most of the bottles. I didn't take a final gravity reading, since working out the ABV would have been a right pain anyway. I'd guess the batch is probably around 8%.