Homebrew report #6

[Adam8281]

I started homebrewing last fall, and in the past year I've brewed 5 5 gallon batches: a nut brown ale, honey raspberry amber ale, a winter ale, an IPA, and an American wheat. It was a great year, it's probably my favorite hobby I've ever had, and I plan on staying with it for a long time and graduatlly improving my setup when I move into a house with more space, etc. For anyone considering homebrewing I definitely recommend it; ask for an equipment kit for Christmas or something. Anyway, for my latest brew, batch #6, I am making a strong cider. (I think it might actually be called "cyser" because it has honey in it.) There is a local farm near me (in Mass.) that sells fresh, unpasteurized apple cider. I am using 5 gallons of the cider, two pounds of honey, and 2 pounds of brown sugar, so this will be a STRONG cider. The original gravity was about 1.80, which means that potentially the cider could hit about 10% alcohol by volume. As for yeast, I am using champagne yeast since it can handle the large amount of fermentables in this batch better than a cider yeast would. It's been in the primary for 4 whole days now (I started it on Monday), and fermentation activity became evident in the airlock after about 12 hours. The airlock is still bubbling furiously, and the fermentation activity seems to be more vigorous and sustained than the other beers I've done. I'm really hoping this turns out well. I'll update the thread when there are new developments.

 

[avatar08]

Sounds good Adam. Been making several different ciders myself lately. Finally starting to cool down in my area and when its so hot I don't want to deal with a 6+ hour all grain brew session, I make a quick cider. 6 different batches going now with different yeast strains to see some comparisons. Most of mine usually come into their own about 8-10 months in and get better from there. I've made one that I boosted with several cans of AJ concentrate to a gravity of 1.165 that is actually down to 1.025 as of last week. Basically the idea with this batch is instead of sweetening after sorbating or kegging, just keep feeding it till the yeast die off from ETOH poisoning and still be left with a nice slightly off dry cider.

Most finish way low usually around 1.001 or .996 or so. Can be a bit dry for some people that expect some kind of sweet cider like Hornsby's, woodchuck or Blackthorn.

Good luck just remember that time is the best ingredient for most ciders.

 

[Adam8281]

I bottled the cider about a week ago. The final ABV% is 11%, so it's pretty fierce. The cider came out very nice, incredibly clear, the clearest brew I've ever made. It has a nice crisp app-ly flavor, and I think that is probably heightened by the tannin I added, so I'm glad I did. I need to get more bottles, because I want to let the cider sit for a few months, but I want to start another beer batch sooner than that.

 

[Ketteringo]

That sounds delicious! I love Woodchuck/Strongbow, and I wish more bars carried them.

 

[Rastus]

You guys suck. I blew up five cases of bottles the only time I tried homebrewing.