The other school of thought when it comes to cider is to ferment and then flavor your cider to taste.  This time I decided to try that method.

To figure out the amount that I wanted to add to the cider to have the flavor I was looking for, I grabbed 8oz (80 x 8oz = 5 gallons) and added amounts of brown sugar for sweetness, cinnamon, nutmeg and crushed coriander for some flavor.  With the amounts that I figured out on my 8oz sample, I multiplied by 80 to scale my flavor to 5 gallons, simple enough.

In the end, this is what I added to an otherwise VERY tart cider:

• 3.5 cups of brown sugar
• 3 tbs of cinnamon
• 2 tsp of nutmeg and coriander

With the brown sugar, I took about 36oz out of the bucket and heated it to about 135f (both to dissolve the sugar and sanitize) and added that back to the bucket.  With the spices, I added them to about 4oz of vodka to add some more zest and sanitize.

I leaned on the side of more tart than sweet as I have a bit of a sweet tooth and tend to over-do the sugars.  The flavor was great, but you never know until you get some carbonation on it.  We’ll see, but I think I took some bite off of the tart as well as giving it some depth.

Now I just have to wait for it to clear up and carbonate.

On another note, I kegged my harvest ale.  I tasted it and it is going to be awesome!  In the future I might want to give it some more malt backbone, but the current profile really accentuates the fresh hope.

Cheers!

Living in Upstate New York means great apples!  Great apples means great hard cider!  It’s been a few years since I’ve done a hard cider, so I figured it was about time.  Friday I made a special trip out to Abbott Farms in nearby Baldwinsville, New York.  I picked up five one gallon jugs of UV pasteurized cider for a total bill of about $25, not too bad.

With the cider in hand, I decided to start the process today.  I crushed up five campden tablets (one tablet per gallon of cider) and sealed up my bucket.  The campden tablets are for killing all the wild yeast and bacteria that exist in the cider.  UV pasteurization is a process of killing some of the dangerous bacteria, without the full pasteurization that is necessary for a lot of commercial products.  This is the “good stuff” because when they do the full pasteurization process, there are sugars and such added to the product to restore some of the lost sweetness.

From here, I will wait 48hrs and pitch a yeast to the cider.  Simple.  In my limited experience, there are always some yeasts and bacteria leftover even after the addition of the campden tablets so expect a full and aggressive fermentation.  That is why I use a bucket on these and not the bottle.

There are other options on how to treat the cider, one is to heat it over 180f but be sure not to boil the cider, it’s bad.

More to come, but my fall brewing is in full effect.

Cheers!

The plan was to make 10 gallons of cider that would have an OG of 1.060 and finish at around 1.011 using an American Ale yeast. We brewed the 10 gallons together by adding Camden tablets to both of the 4 gallon buckets. There was 2 gallons left over for the cider and another 3 gallons that Nick was using for another project. With the 2 gallons we put it on the stove and got the temperature up to 170 and added 6 cups of cane sugar, 6 cups of brown sugar, and the zest and juice of 2 lemons.

We held the two gallons at 170 for about 20 min and added a gallon each into the 4 gallon batches. Because Nick is much better at math than me, we hit our OG dead on!

So far it has been bubbling away for about 8 days and it’s still at 1.030. It’s making it’s way down to 1.011 so I am just going to let it run for a while. After it’s done with the primary, I am going to let it sit in secondary for a while, maybe a month or so, and I am going to bottle it carbonated in my growlers.

I would like to age some of this because I am not ape shit about cider as a whole. With that said, I am excited to try this and I think it will be a really fun drink to break out with my friends. I don’t think it’s going to be my “coming home from a long day of work” brew, but that’s okay.

Cheers!