Apfelwein Batch #1 Racked on Raspberries

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.

Our raspberry experiments are proving to be wildly successful. Our first batch of raspberry racked cider, made with a wine yeast none-the-less, is all gone because it just tasted so damn delicious. It also made pretty pictures. We’re working on four gallons, but made with Nottingham Ale Yeast.

Raspberries were boiled (12 oz. of raspberries per 1 gallon) (Trader Joe’s had the best deal at $2.50 per 12 oz. bag) with 1 tablespoon of brown sugar and then put into the racked cider. We then let it sit for about two or three weeks before bottling.

 

The cider racked on the raspberries, right after they’d been boiled.

 

Raspberries before the cider has been added.

 

The raspberry cider after it’d been sitting for weeks.

 

Isn’t it pretty? It’s been bottled in Newcastle bottles.

 

The raspberry cider label.

Apfelwein Batch #3

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.

Red Belgian # 1 (I Think We’re Screwed)

This article was originally posted on Oct. 3, 2011, on my homebrew website, Fat Grey Tom’s Cider. It has been re-posted here with the same time stamp.

Not to say that we’re totally screwed, but, we may very well be.

You see, it was a long night of brewing, marked by blunders.

It started with a good dinner — vegetarian red curry. It was good.

The Belgian Red — not sure if it will ferment.

We started brewing by boiling 3.5 gallons (we thought it was only 3.) We boiled it all in the huge pot, which turned out to be a good idea.

We put the 3.5 to boil, walked down to the convenience store to buy a package of ice, came back and the water still wasn’t boiling. We waited, it boiled, we added the Amber Malt Extract and Crushed Special B Roast and half the Styrian Goldings Hops.

(Recipe at bottom of the post) 

We boiled it all for an hour, took it off the heat and put it into the fermenting bucket.

And then I realized, the recipe called for adding the other half of the hops at the last ten minutes of the boil.

Woops.

So, I put the other hops in 1 gallon of water and boiled it for ten minutes. The recipe, however, called for the 1 oz of hops to be steeped in the off-heat wort.

Once it was boiling, we put all the ice we had in the house into the wort, which didn’t cool it down much.

And then we added the extra boiling 1 gallon of hops-water.

And were way over five gallons.

So, we took it down stairs to the garage (to get out of the kitchen, so my roomie who lives below could sleep) and put the lid on.

Around midnight, as I was falling asleep, I realized I hadn’t pitched the yeast yet.

I got dressed, tested the temp and found it to be somewhere really hot. Estimated around 90 degrees.

I pitched the yeast and went to bed. “Screw it,” I said to myself.

And so, now, the next day, no bubbles are coming from the brew and the brew store is closed on Mondays.

Damn and blast.

Alas, we have no ready home-brew. We cannot relax and have a home brew. Which is sad.

Next time, we relax.

 

Recipe:

Belgian Red

Ingredients:
6 lbs.           Amber Malt Extract
1/2 lb.        Crushed Special B Roast
2 oz.            Styrian Goldings Hops
Priming:  
3/4 cup      Corn Sugar

Directions:

Bring water to boil. Add Malt Extract, 1 oz. Hops and Crushed Special B Roast.

Boil for an hour.

Turn off heat, steep the other 1 oz. Hops in wort for ten minutes.

Bring water up to five gallons.

Bring wort temperature down to yeast’s directions. Pitch yeast.

Ferment for one week, about until fermentation is complete.

Bottle, cap, let sit for two weeks.

Drink.

UPDATE, April 6, 2013: The original premise was correct. The beer has, so far, continued to be terrible. A 12-pack is still ageing, but the ageing only seems to mellow it, not make it taste less horrible.