This article was originally posted on Oct. 18, 2011, on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.
We racked one gallon of AW #1 on top of cinnamon sticks that had been boiled in water. The taste is pleasant, mildly like Christmas. However, it doesn’t appear to heat well. We’ve bottled it still and it’s sitting in a 12-pack in our newly reorganized work room.
This article was originally posted on Oct. 14, 2011 on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.
October 14 was a cider day.
Leo came over with six gallons of apple juice. We got our measurements ready, realized that we didn’t have the needed two pounds of corn sugar and made up the extra six ounces with brown sugar.
We boiled the brown and corn sugar and added them to the bucket. We poured the apple juice in. Bryce and Leo crossed streams.
The brown sugar colored the water something intense.
We rehydrated the yeast, pitched it, brought the bucket down stairs, cleaned up and called it a day.
The recipe isn’t hard. It’s the same Apfelwein (AW) recipe as it ever was, except this time we’re using the ale yeast again and breaking up the dextrose with brown sugar.
Ingredients:
5 gallons apple juice
2 pounds sugar (26 ounces corn sugar, 6 ounces brown sugar)Directions:
Boil sugars in water for five minutes.
Put sugar water into fermenter.
Pour apple juice into fermenter.
Pitch yeast.
It’s that easy.
As always, check for the tag “AW Batch #3” (http://brew.wheelerc.org/tag/aw-batch-3/) to see what happens.
It’ll be done and ready for testing a month from Oct. 14, when it was made.
In the mean time, have a home brew! Except none of ours are ready to drink . . . Damn.
This article was originally posted on Oct. 11, 2011 on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.
We did two things on October 14, 2011.
We made a 5-gallon batch of Apfelwein with ale yeast (Nottingham) and we made a 1-gallon batch of Apfelwein with ale yeast in a carboy, exclusively with brown sugar. The 5-gallon batch was mixed with a majority corn sugar and a little brown sugar to finish out the measurements.
Here’s what we did:
5 oz. brown sugar, boiled in 1 cup water for about 5 minutes.
1 gallon Great Value apple juice.
Pour into carboy.
Pitch yeast.
Wait.
As always, check its progress under the tag AW Batch #3C (http://brew.wheelerc.org/tag/aw-batch-3c/)
The brown sugar appears to be giving the AW a darker color than normal.
This article was originally posted on Oct. 4, 2011 on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.
Our very first cider, according to Ed Wort’s Apfelwein recipe, took awhile.
This carboy of Cider #1 got bumped up two days because of a missing airlock.
And when we (Bryce, Leo and myself) found ourselves lacking an airlock (the bobber on the one we were supposed to use was missing) it was decided to steal one from one of the four Carlo Rossi carboys downstairs. Besides, we figured, the Apfelwein was supposed to come out on Wednesday — taking it out on Monday wouldn’t be that big of a deal.
So, we stole the airlock and resealed it with a normal cap.
And today, Bryce and I primed and bottled the first 1/5 of Cider #1.
That is to say, prime and bottle the first 1/5 of Fat Grey Tom’s Blitzkrieg Apfelwein.
So, transferred it from the carboy to the bottling bucket, scooped up two glasses, primed it and tasted.
The raspberry liqueur changed the color from a weird golden to reddish-gold.
And man, did it kick. Going down, it gave us the same warm feeling one gets from a shot of schnapps.
With a bit of sugar, it tasted OK, with a very light cider taste. However, the brew is still young and unconditioned.
Have a homebrew . . . Except that we have no home brew left. Damn and blast!
Alas.
We will have homebrew, soon enough. I hope.
I sincerely hope.
This Cider Batch:
Cider: Batch 1
Cider Batch 1: Update
Tag: http://brew.wheelerc.org/tag/AW-batch-1/
This article was originally posted on Sept. 21, 2011, on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.
The cider has begun to clear. How cool is that?
Look!:
This Cider Batch:
Cider: Batch 1
Cider #1 (1/5): Bottled — Raspberry Liqueur Primer
Tag: http://brew.wheelerc.org/tag/AW-batch-1/
This article was originally posted on Sept. 15, 2011 on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.
Cider caught my attention because of the seeming ease. But really, this isn’t what grabbed me.
What grabbed me was and is and will remain cliché.
European ciders grabbed me.
A small brewery in Germany grabbed me with its local ciders and its deposit-required grolsch-tops.
All manner of ciders in Eastern Europe, in Western Europe, in all my travels, grabbed me. They said, “Listen to us! Pay attention to us! We’re awesome and worth drinking!”
And so I drank.
When it came time to brew our first batch of beer, we brewed. And it turned out well. But I wanted cider.
So, we managed to procure and re-purpose four Carlo Rossi containers and one Mr. Beer keg and began to brew. Such is our first brew, from the Ed Wort’s Apfelwein recipe.
We followed the recipe but broke the recipe up into five 1-gallon batches.
When we originally went to Wally World to buy the juice, we had to go for a bastardization of juices. Two gallons of Mott’s, three gallons off Great Value.
One gallon of pure Mott’s, one gallon of pure GV, three gallons of mixed.
The original recipe calls for a yeast that was not easily available to us so instead we went with another, equivalent wine yeast: Lalvin 71B-1122.
And so, we wait. In the mean time, pictures.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/wcowperthwaite/sets/72157627553002865/
Updates:
Cider Batch 1: Update
Cider #1 (1/5): Bottled — Raspberry Liqueur Primer
Tag: http://brew.wheelerc.org/tag/AW-Batch-1/
