Happiness is...

[RobertN]

a rich thick krausen This is a hard cider that I have made many times in the past, but have not done in a couple years. We live in the middle of a wonderful apple growing area, referred to as Apple Hill
There are dozens of great apple ranches around.

I put this together last night; it already has a nice krausen going.

 

[Thomas]

Morning Robert.
Holy smokes,now there some good times to be had...setting by the fire place slow sipping on glass full as one reflects on past years.

 

[Egon]

Nice project. Recipe?

Many years ago I brewed up beer and some wine. Really liked the beer and there were a few good batches of wine too.

 

[Chuck52]

I've got a five gallon batch going right now, too. Unfortunately, my juice was mainly Golden Delicious, with some Red Delicious and some Jonathan. That makes for a fairly bland cider, but the apples were free, so I got my money's worth! I'm thinking of at least adding some acid blend to make it a little tart. What kind of yeast are you using? I used Wyeast sweet mead for the first time....I've usually just used a dry ale yeast.

Chuck

 

[dmccarty]

TBN does it again.

I just ordered two books on Amazon this week. One is a book on traditional Southern apples. The man that wrote the books years ago traveled around the south trying to find these old varieties before they died out. He ended up writing a book and there are only a few copies left and since I have been wanting to buy the book for years I finally did.... I just read another article about him and he mentioned that there where not many books left. So I bought it.

When I bought it Amazon had another book bundled with it for making cider.

So how are you making the cider?

Later,
Dan

 

[RobertN]

TBN does it again.
So how are you making the cider?
Dan

There are a number of ways to make cider. The simplest is to simply crack the lid on a jug of apple juice, and let it sit on the counter. There are lots of natural wild yeasts around apples; you will get a low alchohol(~3%) yeild from this. A step up from that is to add a known yeast to the mix. An Ale yeast will sustain a 8% or threreabouts alchohol level. This recipe is for a hard cider and uses a champagne yeast. The champagne yeast will sustain a 12-14% alchohol content.

This particular recipe is a hard cider. It uses a champagne yeast, but is also fortified; it has sugars added in addition to the natural sugars found in the sweet apple juice.

This is a recipe from the old Home Brew Digest; it used to be an email digest, back before the World Wide Web. I got this back in ’90. I have made various renditions of the recipe, using different yeasts. It is really good! And, it is simple. It will however, knock your socks off too...

5 gallons fresh unpastuerized sweet cider
3 lbs brown sugar
3 lbs honey
2 pkg champagne yeast

Strain 3 gallons of sweet cider in to a 6.5 gallon carboy.

Strain ½ gallon cider in to a pot on the stove. Heat enough to allow brown sugar and honey to dissolve.

Pour mixture in to carboy.

Add yeast to carboy; swirl carboy to mix.

Top off carboy with remaining cider, for 5 gallons. You should have about ½ gallon of cider left over(the honey and brown sugar make up for 1/2 gallon of volume).

Put an airlock on the carboy; allow to ferment.

Bottle as with beer. Corn sugar for bottling.

Things I have tried or found…

Bottle with ¼ cup corn sugar; it does not need so much for carbonation.

I have done this with 2lb dark brown sugar, 1lb light brown sugar.

A non attenuative yeast results in a sweeter, more apple flavored cider. I like this best. I have used a more attenuative yeast; it came out a lot champagne like. Still very tasty though. On the stuff I started this weekend, I found a White Labs liquid “English Cider Yeast” . We’ll see… This morning it was bubbling about every 1-2 seconds through the airlock.

 

[RobertN]

setting by the fire place slow sipping on glass full as one reflects on past years.

Hi Thomas,
Yes, this is a sipper. Between fortification and high yield yeast, this one has the potential to knock your socks off

 

[RobertN]

I've usually just used a dry ale yeast.
Chuck

This time I used White Labs Cider yeast WLP775 strain. Previously I had used various champagne strains.

 

[Thomas]

Evening Robert.
"Yes, this is a sipper."
Well don't feed the old Farmall any while pulling wagon of folks,for the soooo call tired iron may not be anymore.

 

[livincountry]

I'm a home brewer....beer that is. I've just bottled my 4th batch. It's a lot of fun and i've met some great people. Looks like I need to venture into cider brewing. I have two glass carboys and 2 6 gallon plastic bucket type carboys just taking up room in the basement at the moment. Looks like a good weekend project

thanks for the info

Tony