I look forward to this time of year, when I can get my hands on some fresh apple cider to make my yearly batch of hard cider. This year I have not been able to find any real fresh stuff and I don't have the time to drive to Wilcox to visit the cider mills, so I had to improvise. I chose to use the Simply Apple pure pressed juice for a trial batch, here is the recipe:
Ingredients:
3 Gallons Simply Apple Pure Pressed
6 lbs Desert Wildflower honey
6 Cinnamon Sticks
10 Whole Cloves
1/2 Tsp Nutmeg
5 Tbsp Acid Blend
1/2 Oz Irish Moss
Yeast Energizer
Lalvin D47 Yeast
Place all ingredients except the yeast and the yeast energizer in a pot and bring to a boil, continue boil for 15 minutes, skim off the scum. Remove 2 cups of the mix and place in a wine bottle and cool to 80 degrees - this will be used for the yeast starter. Pour remaining mixture into plastic primary fermenter and allow to cool - I do this with a bathtub of cool water.
Once the yeast starter mix is properly cooled, add 1 Tbsp of yeast energizer to mix, disssolve the yeast in 2 oz of water for 15 minutes and add mix in wine bottle. Install airlock and place in dark location for 4 hours. Once the starter in well established, aerate the cider mixture (this is called a "must") and add the yeast starter. Place lid on fermenting bucket and install an airlock.
Allow the cider to ferment for approximately 1 week, rack (siphon transfer) to glass carboy, straining out any remaining cinnamon, cloves, etc. and once again install an airlock. Allow to ferment until there is 1 bubble about every 3 minutes coming from the airlock. At this point you will rack the mixture again and prime with 1/2 cup of corn sugar and water mixture (dissovle the sugar and bring to boil to sterilize). I like to put the sugar water mix in a clean carboy and siphon the cider into that container to get a good mix with the primer. Next fill your bottles and cap. Allow to carbonate / settle for at least 2 weeks before drinking. Best served very cold.
I should point out that it is VERY IMPORTANT that you don't over prime, or bottle before the cider has fully fermented. When I started making hard cider 15 years ago I made that mistake and ended up with glass grenades. I literally had chucks of glass embedded in the drywall where I stored the bottles - very dangerous indeed!
Enjoy!
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
Showing posts with label brewing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brewing. Show all posts
Monday, September 7, 2009
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Making Mead
A couple weeks ago I started a brew of Mead. This is my first attempt at brewing Mead - I generally brew up a couple large batches of hard cider in the fall each year, but that's about it. For those of you unfamilliar, Mead is simply fermented honey water.
For my brew I started with 6.5 lbs (about .6 gallons) of honey mixed with 2.5 gallons of filtered water. I them brought the mixture to boiling and then skimmed the top after about 15 minutes. I made sure to keep the mixture stirred while boiling so as to not burn the honey.
While the mixture was cooling, I sterilized my fermenting containers using a mixture of bleach and hot water then rinsed throughly to ensure no bleach was left behind.
After cooling the mixture to room temp (~75 F) I poured it into my 6 gallon container that had 2 teaspoons each of citric acid and yeast energizer. I then added a vial of While Labe Sweet Mead / Wine Yeast (WLP720), aerated, then covered the pail with the lid and an airlock to ensure no bacterial would enter. For the first 5 days I opened the container each morning and stirred vigorously for about a minute. The first stage of fermentation was very rapid and resulted in a lot of foaming - this is the reason for a 6 gallon container for only 3 gallons of mixture (referred to as "must" during this stage).
Approximately 4 days into the fermentation I juiced enough cherries to make about 1.5 cups of fresh juice using my Mr. Juiceman (that I bought years ago and have hardly used). This was a great way to juice with as I did not have to pit the cherries first - just put them in whole and the machine took care of the rest. Adding this juice to my 3 gallons of must caused a surge in fermentation over the next 3 days.
I have now transferred (racked) the micture to a 3 gallon glass bottle to continue the fermentation process. Siphoning the liquid from one container to another helps to remove sediment from the liquid. This results in throwing out a small amount ot the liquid. Once the must had been transferred to the glass bottle there was about .5 gallons of space left - I topped this off with some more honey water mixture and sealed the bottle with an airlock.
I am now waiting for the mixture to slow down on fermentation, but not stop. I will then transfer it to yet another bottle to remove more sediment. Once the mixture starts to clear I plan to bottle 1 gallon of the misture , priming each bottle with a little corn sugar or honey to cause just a little more fermentation which will produce a sparkling mixture. The remaining mixture will be allowed to complete the fermentation and will be racked a couple more times yiled a clear liquid. Once I reach the desired clarity, I will bottle 1 more gallon and put the remaining mixture into a 5 litre oak barrel to season on the oak. I will check the mix weekly until the desired plavor is attained, then bottle the remaining gallon.
While I am taking this further than most new to making Mead will, I think you can see how easy it is to make, not to mention cost effective. Not including the equipment (buckets, pans, bottles, etc.) it costs about $2 for a good wine bottle of mead. This is a skill no survivalist should be without...
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
For my brew I started with 6.5 lbs (about .6 gallons) of honey mixed with 2.5 gallons of filtered water. I them brought the mixture to boiling and then skimmed the top after about 15 minutes. I made sure to keep the mixture stirred while boiling so as to not burn the honey.
While the mixture was cooling, I sterilized my fermenting containers using a mixture of bleach and hot water then rinsed throughly to ensure no bleach was left behind.
After cooling the mixture to room temp (~75 F) I poured it into my 6 gallon container that had 2 teaspoons each of citric acid and yeast energizer. I then added a vial of While Labe Sweet Mead / Wine Yeast (WLP720), aerated, then covered the pail with the lid and an airlock to ensure no bacterial would enter. For the first 5 days I opened the container each morning and stirred vigorously for about a minute. The first stage of fermentation was very rapid and resulted in a lot of foaming - this is the reason for a 6 gallon container for only 3 gallons of mixture (referred to as "must" during this stage).
Approximately 4 days into the fermentation I juiced enough cherries to make about 1.5 cups of fresh juice using my Mr. Juiceman (that I bought years ago and have hardly used). This was a great way to juice with as I did not have to pit the cherries first - just put them in whole and the machine took care of the rest. Adding this juice to my 3 gallons of must caused a surge in fermentation over the next 3 days.
I have now transferred (racked) the micture to a 3 gallon glass bottle to continue the fermentation process. Siphoning the liquid from one container to another helps to remove sediment from the liquid. This results in throwing out a small amount ot the liquid. Once the must had been transferred to the glass bottle there was about .5 gallons of space left - I topped this off with some more honey water mixture and sealed the bottle with an airlock.
I am now waiting for the mixture to slow down on fermentation, but not stop. I will then transfer it to yet another bottle to remove more sediment. Once the mixture starts to clear I plan to bottle 1 gallon of the misture , priming each bottle with a little corn sugar or honey to cause just a little more fermentation which will produce a sparkling mixture. The remaining mixture will be allowed to complete the fermentation and will be racked a couple more times yiled a clear liquid. Once I reach the desired clarity, I will bottle 1 more gallon and put the remaining mixture into a 5 litre oak barrel to season on the oak. I will check the mix weekly until the desired plavor is attained, then bottle the remaining gallon.
While I am taking this further than most new to making Mead will, I think you can see how easy it is to make, not to mention cost effective. Not including the equipment (buckets, pans, bottles, etc.) it costs about $2 for a good wine bottle of mead. This is a skill no survivalist should be without...
John
http://www.redbarnworkshop.com/
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