Long time, no blog! I spent a lot of 2019 walking rather than doing SCA projects. I'm not sure how 2020 will balance out, but I'm not dead yet! I have a few posts to talk about recent goings-on, starting with brewing.
After attending Mistress Faye du Trees class on 19th century American apples and cider, I was inspired to try putting up some cider of my own. I got a gallon of pastureized cider from a roadside garden shop, put in some Cider House Select yeast and a teaspoon or so of nutrient, and let it go. I had thought that it didn't start fermenting, so I ignored it, meaning to dump it out. It wasn't until my son pestered me to move it out from under the table when I picked it up and saw the telltale bubbles of fermentation! I racked it into a 3L glass wine jug and let it settle for a month.
It was a good thing that I went to Red Mountain Mead Hall and had a taste of home-made hard cider there, or I would have thought I messed up hugely. It is not NEARLY as sweet as anything in the stores, not even the dry ciders. I have a feeling all of those ciders are back-sweetened to various degrees using apple juice or juice concentrate. The apple flavor is also much lighter.
It was drinkable in early December, and I think it improved over the course of the month. It was polished off a few days ago, and I decided to put up some more (plus a little quick-ish mead because I'd also bought honey from the garden shop).
So today:
- Following Mistress Sorcha's quick mead recipe, I used 1 gallon of spring water, 2 lb honey (McCutcheon's, which I didn't notice until today doesn't say it's USA honey, so...), 3/4 tsp Cider House Select yeast, 1 tsp yeast nutrient, small palmfull of dried grapefruit peel. I found the quick mead I made for Pennsic a few years ago very yeasty, so I think I'll let this one ferment longer and see how it goes.
- 4 1.5L glass bottles of Martinelli's apple juice, as cider is no longer in stores. Martinelli's was the only one with US-grown apples. Each bottle got 1/2 tsp yeast and 1/2 tsp nutrient. One bottle got 1-2 Tb of the grapefruit peel, just to see.
- 1 gallon water jug with 1/2 gal. Martinelli's apple juice and 48 oz Musselman Tart Cherry Juice, 3/4 tsp yeast and 1 tsp nutrient
And that's that for the next month or so!
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