Summer Cider

Ciders are really fun, really easy, and quite frankly a great drink for the summer time. I did something a little different this time, and I think it turned out really nicely. There are a few things I will probably do different next time.

Ingredients:

• 5 gallons Apple Juice
• 1 pound Light Brown Sugar
• 2 pounds Honey
• 1 pack Champagne yeast
• 4 ounces Oak Chips
• Potassium Sorbate (1/4 teaspoon per gallon) (Optional)
• 2 containers Frozen Apple Juice Concentrate

Instructions:

• Mix together on medium heat one gallon of apple juice with the brown sugar and honey.
• Pour mixture into fermenter with rest of the apple juice.
• Pitch yeast.
• Ferment for about 1-2 weeks.
• Rack to secondary on top of oak chips. Ferment for about one week.
• Let 2 cans of frozen apple juice concentrate thaw completely. Add to the keg or bottling bucket.
• Rack from secondary into keg or bottling bucket on top of thawed concentrate. This will add to the sweetness (this process is called back-sweetening.) In order for the back-sweetening to work, you have to stop the fermentation process, or the yeast will just keep consuming the sugar. Now, there are two things you can do to stop the fermentation process. You can cold shock it, which involves putting the bucket or keg in a very cold location like a refrigerator, which causes the yeast to go dormant. You can also add potassium sorbate. Either way works.

I used potassium sorbate, but I added it to the keg, which I don't think did a lot of good considering I immediately put it in the kegerator to carb. I think next time, I'll add the potassium sorbate in the secondary process so as to avoid a high alcohol content. I don't mind ciders of this ABV, but one around 4-5% is a little nicer. I like the addition of 2 cans of concentrate, but you can add more or less depending on how sweet you want the cider. 

OG:   1.060

FG:    1.000

ABV: 8%

Until Next Time,

RHSC

The Wedding

So, it's been a while since my last post, mostly because I've been so busy getting ready for my friend's wedding this past January. We decided on three beers: Blonde Ale, Strawberry Chocolate Porter, and the Irish Red. I pretty much stayed true to the original recipes, so I'm not going to post those here, but they are on my blog and pretty easy to find. I also made a flat cider, that we served as a wine due to its very high alcohol content (about 11%). The cider was simple: 5 gallons of apple juice, 2 pounds brown sugar, 2 pounds honey, and one pack of champagne yeast. I fermented it for 2 weeks before transferring it to wine bottles.

 I did make some minor changes in the malts to try and get the color just a bit better on the beers. Although it is perfectly fine for porters to be brown, I really like a very dark porter, so I added a little more roasted barley to the original recipe which did help. We also lightened the malt bill on the red, which helped a little. Instead of being black like the first go round, it was a dark brown, which is as good as it's going to get apparently.

Everything was a success. Everyone who visited me seemed to enjoy what they were drinking. A few even asked me where they could buy it. Some asked me for my information so they could get in contact with me about making their own beer, or having me make some for them. This all made me very excited. I am very glad that everyone seemed to like the beer. I'm also very excited that my friend's idea of having me make the beer went over so well.

At the end of the night, we ran out of the red and cider. We had more blonde than porter left. The blonde, while well received, seemed to be the least favorite of the night. This doesn't surprise me because the flavors of the other two beers are so much more complex and robust, which is going to attract people who like beer more than the simple offerings of a blonde. And ultimately we had a lot of beer drinkers in the house. However, those who were more casual beer drinkers really did seem to like the blonde a lot. The cider was a hit among those who were looking for something closer to wine to drink.

While I wouldn't necessarily want to do this all of the time due to the time constraints (and not to mention the pressure of getting it right), it was a lot of fun and I definitely wouldn't mind doing this again for very special occasions. We also came up for names for the brews (with the exception of the porter), which are entertaining but apt. I'm still taking suggestions on the porter. Leave me your idea in the comments section of this post.

What we served:

Strawberry Chocolate Porter (name pending)
OG: 1.070
FG:  1.018
ABV: 7%

"Black Irish" Red
OG: 1.064
FG:  1.020
ABV: 6%

Dirty Blonde
OG: 1.060
FG:  1.012
ABV: 6%

Sinful Sippin' Cider
OG: 1.090
FG:  1.010
ABV: 11%


Until Next Time,
RHSC