Don't Cry Over Leaked Beer...Though I wanted too

Been a while since I posted so thought I'd post about a few things...

Hops
Things are progressing nicely. All the plants look healthy and have plenty of bines. None of them are as impressive as I'd hope for as warm as the spring started, but I'm being patient. I put some compost down a few weeks ago. I may try some basic fertilizer like Miracle Gro soon to see what happens.

Brewing
Been brewing around once a month. Nothing in the fermentor now as I kegged 15 gals of beer and cider last week. So my kegerator is full with 5 kegs for the first time ever. I still need to post some pictures of that finished kegerator project. I plan to brew again the weekend of May 12.

Cider
Finally kegged a cider. Have had it conditioning since the middle of November. I back sweetened with 1 can of apple juice concentrate because it was bone dry and pretty tart due to the type of apples.

BJCP
I've been studying to be a BJCP judge. I passed the new online entrance exam a few weeks ago. I'm taking the tasting portion this upcoming Saturday. If you plan to take the online exam...know your styles!! The exam was very difficult. So know your stuff and use the study guide. Did I mention, know your styles!

Reason for Post Title As I mentioned above, I kegged a bunch of stuff last week. Well I got home from a trip this past weekend and I to check on the progress of the carbonation. To my sadness, there was a ton of beer at the bottom of the kegerator. Come to find I have a leak in my beverage connection. After I soaked it all up, I measure 2 gallons of lost beer! It's a Munich Helles and my first attempt at a lager. I've been waiting on this beer since January. Needless to say, I was pretty pissed. But oh well, guess I have to brew more to fill the keg.

First Try at Cider

A friend of mine has a huge apple press every year on his farm. The makes a big deal out of it with a family-friendly party. Everyone helps out washing apples, carrying them to the homemade press (this huge hydraulic press) and bottling. I suggested to him that we should turn some of it into hard cider and he was more than excited to offer up 5 gallons.

So right now I have 5 gallons starting to ferment. I decided to go with Nottingham yeast (my LHBS didn't have US-05) for my first shot at this. If I'm successful then I'll likely go with a cider yeast next year and likely make more than 1 batch.

My first step was to get all of the cider into my bucket and I put in 5 campden tablets (1 tablet per gallon of juice). The potassium in the campden tablet will help to stop any natural yeast/molds/fungus in the apples from eating on the sugars. With putting those in however, you need to give it time to dissipate out. They say at least 24 hours. Due to timing constraints, I let it go 48 hours.

It did take some time to see some active fermentation and even now, 3 days since pitching, the fermentation is still VERY slow. I can see some krausen starting to form on the surface but it seems much slower than beer. I was expecting this but was hoping it didn't take this long. Lots of people on the forums mention a delayed start to fermentation. I'll just keep watching it for the next few days and maybe take a reading (OG 1.051) to make sure it is actually fermenting.

After around 2 week I'll plan to transfer the cider to a carboy and add some pectic enzyme to help clear out the cider. I'll then let it sit for around 4 to 6 months before kegging.

So now its just a waiting came on this. I'm very excited to see how this turns out over the winter/spring.

I'll post some updates during the process.