Day 1 and I messed up already

[Kaitala]

Hi! I'm Stephi and just got my wine making kit today. So excited, I decided to make the cider kit I ordered first, since that should be easy and drinkable soon, then do the pinot noirs kit I got since that will take longer.

Sterilized everything, then followed the directions, boiling water, adding sugar, poured that into the fermenter, and figured "no problem, it says not to add hot liquid to a glass carboy, not a plastic one". Got the concentrate and started pouring that in and as I did so, I watched the carboy sag. Figured out what was going on, and added water to cool it. My bubbler now has a 10degree list.
Figured we're this far in, topped it up, and I'll just rock with what I've got for now. Hopefully the company will let me exchange it. Only place to go is up from here, right???

 

[sour_grapes]

Welcome to WMT!

You say you "followed the directions" and then speak about boiling water, etc. May we ask what directions you were following?

 

[hounddawg]

welcome to WMT, @Kaitala
Dawg

 

[BernardSmith]

Hi Kaitala -and welcome. I gotta say the same thing as sour-grapes, brewers brewing beer use close to boiling water (hence the term brewing) but for wine making we usually avoid cooking fruit. Boiling water often sets pectins so you get jam rather than wine, and so hard to think that a quality kit manufactured to help novice winemakers make a cider or a grape wine would ask you to boil water.

 

[Kaitala]

The directions that came with this kit.
https://www.northernbrewer.com/products/cider-house-selecttm-spiced-apple-cider

 

[Kaitala]

I'm totally new so I'm sure I'm going to make a ton of mistakes. I'm reading a lot on this forum and blogs and articles and such.

 

[joeswine]

You should have not booked any water, I've made this before I'll re,,read the instructions tomorrow for you but have a cherry cider same brand .

 

[sour_grapes]

Well I'll be! The directions do call for the user to boil the water (to make the sugar dissolve easily). I have never come across this before.

https://cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/2785/6868/t/3/assets/40436-SPappleciderinstruct1-1590767810472.pdf

So, yeah, I agree now with what you wrote in your first post. Nothing to do but to rock with it!

 

[G259]

I suspect that it has something to do with not supplying pot. meta for the initial ferment, just add a few words to the instructions! Hey, I could be wrong, but it does sound fishy. I would think twice about the supplier/brand of the kit. Has anyone EVER had a problem getting sugar to dissolve? And for a 5% cider!