Posted on 09/05/2012 3:10:02 AM PDT by djf
I try to do a couple, but I had a batch go bad last year. Summertime.
The very best results are right about now, when the apples are fresh off the trees.
My problem now is if I start a batch, I might not have the room, I just mid-Aug bottled a run of Stout that is aging. That also came out really, really good, but another month or so it will get much better!
Ping the homebrewing list.
Interesting article on Hard Cider.
I don’t think I have ever had a hard cider. I would love to try it someday!
Below is a link to info on making a home brew cider. There as some very interesting comments below the article.
http://www.instructables.com/id/Home-Brew-Hard-Cider-from-Scratch/
This weekend I tried a bottle of my 2008 batch and the next night a bottle from my 2010 batch. I’ve been getting the urge to brew. I always get it this time of year. Apple season is coming here in Maine.
It’s ridiculously easy.
Three or four gallons of fresh cider (it can be pasteurized but NO PRESERVATIVES! NO SULFITES! NO SORBATES! NO PRESERVATIVES!) and a good yeast ( a nice bottom settling ale yeast works best).
Give it about 5 days primary, then draught it off and let is settle for a day or so and bottle.
You won’t be disappointed!
“Beer is without question, like Pizza, Madonna, and fast cars, an icon of modern American culture.”
You lost me at “Madonna”
I don’t think one major contribution was mentioned in the article: Marketing.
Around 1840 or so I suspect newspapers were becoming more popular and affordable. With the influx of German immigrants I bet there were lots of ads featuring buxom Bavarian beer babes holding big mugs of frothy brew. That sounds silly but beer ads seem so much more alluring then cider ads.
you can inhibit bacterial growth at 4% but it will eventually find a way. 12% will generally halt any bacterial activity. incidentally, that’s why we have port today, because Portuguese wine merchants fortified their low wines with distilled spirits to preserve them on long voyages.
Apple jack, beef jerky and barbeque baked beans would keep me happy most winter nights. If one of you brewers will invite me over I’ll bring the jerky.
This also puts a whole different view on “Johnny Appleseed” and what he was up to.
PING
Interesting. Thanks.
I know that one of the things I have to be careful about is fruit flies. They carry acetobacter.
The Romans knew. Sometimes wine (vin) would go bad (gar), because fruit flies and acetobacter had infected it. That bacteria changes ethanol to acetic acid. What we call vinegar.
But if I am lucky I can get some Magners (imported from Ireland). Just had my last bottle on Saturday.
In Germany I drank something called “Apfelkorn”. Sort of an apple brandy and like brandy, delivered a lethal hangover.
Fascinating article. The last time I drank hard cider I was a fifteen year old kid with a gallon of unfermented cider & a package of Fleischmann’s yeast. Remember the carbonation now, too.
Is Magners available at most larger liquor stores?
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