I bought 7 gallons of local cider from the grocery store – it was pasteurized – and decided upon some research to skip the Camden tablets entirely. I sanitized the bucket, lock and cover and dumped it all in. OG on the cider was around 1.042.

Into the cider went both vials of yeast, a White Labs English Cider WLP775 and a White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale (Westmalle yeast). Then I realized that the cider temp had to be somewhere in the low fifties. Not good.

No action for 24 hours, but then a little bit of bubbling, and by this morning it’s cranking. The top of the bucket is bulged up and the lock is burping away. Without Campden tablets I do have to be very careful about the timing of my next sugar addition (the honey, molasses and cane sugar) because once the yeast are done something else might move in. I intend to check the gravity in another 24 hours to see where we’ve gotten to.

The cider yeast attenuation is over 80% and the Westmalle is around 80% tops so this should be nice, dry, strong cider when all is said and done.