5 gallons of cider brewing

So as I said before, I want to provide some details about brewing cider. Nick picked up 13 gallons of UV pasteurized cider from a cider mill north of us (I will spare sharing their name because according to NYS law, they are not supposed to sell us unpasteurized cider, stupid NY laws).

The plan was to make 10 gallons of cider that would have an OG of 1.060 and finish at around 1.011 using an American Ale yeast. We brewed the 10 gallons together by adding Camden tablets to both of the 4 gallon buckets. There was 2 gallons left over for the cider and another 3 gallons that Nick was using for another project. With the 2 gallons we put it on the stove and got the temperature up to 170 and added 6 cups of cane sugar, 6 cups of brown sugar, and the zest and juice of 2 lemons.

We held the two gallons at 170 for about 20 min and added a gallon each into the 4 gallon batches. Because Nick is much better at math than me, we hit our OG dead on!

So far it has been bubbling away for about 8 days and it's still at 1.030. It's making it's way down to 1.011 so I am just going to let it run for a while. After it's done with the primary, I am going to let it sit in secondary for a while, maybe a month or so, and I am going to bottle it carbonated in my growlers.

I would like to age some of this because I am not ape shit about cider as a whole. With that said, I am excited to try this and I think it will be a really fun drink to break out with my friends. I don't think it's going to be my "coming home from a long day of work" brew, but that's okay.

Cheers!