Like some ghost from beyond the grave, Chas has put up the new 101 from the other side of the globe while asleep. No, it’s not some crazy magic. Okay, maybe it is.
This week’s 101 is on Cider. Chas wrote this up before he ran overseas. By all accounts the beers in Scotland are great, as you would expect from the UK.
Like all our 101’s let us know if you think anything should be changed. We’re not perfect and always learning more.
-Mikey
Quick note that there’s no brewing this weekend. Chas is overseas and I’ve already got a brew in the shed.
Last weekend we tried a few different brews. Chas has already put up his review of the stout. The review of the Australian Pale Ale will go up in a couple days.
Another one we tried was “Gauss’ Law” Hopped Cider. Another experimental cider from Chas. As was pointed out to us, a malted cider is called a Graff. Not sure what a hopped cider (with no malt) would be called. Anyway, we got around to share a bottle. And at over 10% alcohol I’m glad we didn’t have one each.
First up there was plenty of earthy apple aroma. Rich and woody without a strong sweetness. Good on the nose and matches well with the flavours.
Wow, this is complex and tasty. Initially it’s light and easy with the apple coming in quite subtlety then building big. It’s not until mid-late into it before the hops kicks in. There’s a good citrus hop flavour that sticks around for a long time. The bitterness keeps the apple in check and there’s no sickly sweetness anywhere in sight. If anything there’s a bit too much hops here. Bitterness does get a bit much after half a glass. But, that may be a good thing given the alcohol level in this.
Food wise this would match really well with duck, turkey or chicken. Preferably roasted. Would also work with pork.
If Chas makes more of this I’ll definitely be getting my hands on a couple bottles for myself.
-Mikey
Malted Cider in glasses
A while ago Chas ordered some malt for a brew and it exploded in the mail. A replacement of malt was sent, and about half of the original malt was still left. What a great opportunity to add malt to something, like a cider.
I’m no fan of ciders. I’ve made that view quite clear. But the rhubarb and apple cider Chas made was nice and enjoyable. So, I went into this with an open mind.
The first thing I noticed with the cider was an unpleasant off egg smell. Chas ensures me that the other bottles are fine and don’t have any eggyness.
The flavour was okay. Apple sweetness right up front, then a slight sour taste. After that the malt comes through a bit. There’s a bit of egg taste at the end which isn’t nice. The body holds well and if it wasn’t for the egg I might enjoy this.
Not sure what food to match this with. The dud bottle makes it harder. I’m thinking Italian, maybe a spicy and/or greasy pizza. Might work with a red meat Mexican dish like tacos or burritos.
I would like to have another one of these ciders. I think this could be tweaked to make it quite nice. As long as the bottle is good.
-Mikey
As mentioned, I made some cider this weekend! Mikey doesn’t believe in cider so I had the aid of my friend who shall be referred to as the Cider Minion. Although I’ve done brews on my own before, having a second pair of hands is always helpful, and Cider Minion was no exception.
I had originally wanted to do a proper batch of the Apple and Rhubarb Cider I made awhile ago. The original brew was a bit haphazard so I didn’t do a recipe write up of it. Unfortunately I couldn’t find any rhubarb, but I did have some left over hops from a porter we made, so I decided to make a hopped cider.
Judging from the Apple and Rhubarb Cider, this stuff was going to be strong; I was aiming for at least 10% alcohol. I wanted to make this cider stronger than the previous version because I thought a little alcohol burn would add to the taste and feel of the beverage. So I’ve decided to call this cider Gauss’ Law based on a really bad pun that I’m not going to go into. Puns are awesome by the way.
Ingredients
This was for a (what was supposed to be) a four litre batch.
Bring half a litre of water up to a boil and start steeping the bittering hops for 30 minutes. At the 25 minute mark, add the aroma hops.
My juicer isn’t the most efficient machine in the world, so a better juicer or an apple press would probably require fewer apples, but I managed to get 3.5 litres of apple juice out of the apples, which is what I was after. This 3.5 litres needs to be added to a separate pot from the hops and brought to a boil for about 15 minutes. This will kill any bugs in the juice.
Once the hops are done, strain them into the juice. Also add the dextrose (this can really be done at any time).
I was surprised this time around. Previously I’ve gotten a pretty decent hot break out of boiling apple juice. This wasn’t the case, even though I’ve used Golden Delicious apples before. Oh well…
Once your juice has boiled for at least 15 minutes, put a lid on the pot and let it sit in a sink full of cold water for at least 20 minutes, changing the water regularly.
Throw all of this into a 5 litre fermenter and pitch the yeast and it’s done!
Unfortunately this process only left me with about 3.5 litres all up, even though I started with half a litre of water for steeping the hops and 3.5 litres of apple juice. I guess I underestimated how much I would lose to evaporation in the boil, or I under measured things.
The OSG I got was right on 1.070, which wasn’t quite as high as I was hoping for. The OSG on the Apple and Rhubard Cider (which didn’t have added dextrose) was 1.064, I was probably a little conservative with the dextrose. The previous cider managed to get a FSG below 1, but I don’t quite expect that with this one because the hops are adding to the specific gravity (although only slightly). My prediction is an alcohol content of about 9.5% after bottling. It’s not quite what I wanted.
Anyway, that’s going to take at least two weeks in the carboy, then bottling, then tasting. We’ll see how it turns out!
-Chas
Apple and Rhubarb sour Cider in glasses
As you have read already, Chas is making cider. My views on this are pretty clear. Cider is not beer and therefore not as good. I’m prepared to change that view if there are ciders that can show their complexity and range.
This might just be the first cider to do that.
First, it’s not sickly sweet, or driven by sweetness, like a lot of commercial ciders.
Second, it’s for more than just one flavour. The majority of commercial ciders are apple flavour. There’s more range now but still it’s one flavour: pear, raspberry, strawberry, and any other berry you can think of.
Third, commercial cider has to be served very cold for it to be drinkable, but this one… no wait, it still needs that.
There is a lot of sourness here. And I do mean a lot. There’s just enough sweetness to prevent this becoming undrinkable. Keeping this cold helps a huge amount.
A quick note on the gravity. Original was 1.058, final was 0.994. That gives it an alcohol content of 8.9%. As a result there is a big body here that helps hold it all together and drives the big flavour.
My criticism is that:
Overall I’m pretty happy to drink this non-beer.
-Mikey
Hi everyone,
So as I mentioned in my last few posts, I have a juicer, and I have a bit of extra malt. So why not try throwing some malt into some apple juice and see what happens?
I went down to my local market and found a pretty good deal on organic juicing apples, i.e. apples that aren’t pretty enough to sell as eating apples. I bought a hell of a lot – about 7 kilograms!
I had read in various places that you get about 1 litre of juice from 1-2 kilograms of apples, so I thought that this would be enough for about 4 or 5 litres of juice. Unfortunately I was pretty wrong and only got about 2 litres. I’ve since found out that this ratio works better for apple pressing, which is a much more efficient method of extracting juice. Using a juicer like I have tends to lose a lot of juice to the pulp it creates.
I’m not going to go out and buy a juice press, but next time I may try squeezing out the pulp. We’ll see.
Anyway, after cutting up a whole bunch of apples and juicing them, I wasn’t left with the amount of juice I thought I’d get. So from there, things began to turn into an un-hopped apple beer rather than a malted cider.
I set my 2 litres of juice to boil and added a cup of golden light liquid malt extract. The hot break was huge on this one; the pot was only about a third full, and it still nearly boiled over! Once that was under control, I let it boil for 15 minutes while I did some cleaning.
After the boil, I let the bottle sit in a sink full of ice water for 10 minutes, emptied the sink, and then filled it up again for another 10 minute bath.
Once this wort was in the carboy, I topped it up with about 2 litres of water – so this batch is going to be 4 litres in total.
Two litres juice, one cup malt, two litres water
The yeast i used was an SN9 wine yeast. It’s what I had on hand, but, considering there’s malt in there, I probably should have gone and used an ale yeast. That’s something to experiment with later.
The wort was tasty. It wasn’t overwhelmingly apple-y or beer-y, but had good hints of each. So I’m confident I’ll get something interesting out this.
The OSG was 1.028, which is a little lower than I would have liked. As a lot of that sugar is fructose, I should be able to get a final gravity pretty close to 1, so that’s promising. Alcohol content should be around 4% after bottling.
I’d like to see if I can push the alcohol content a bit higher, so I might add some dextrose next time. Of course the other option is adding more malt or juice, but, assuming the mixture of flavours is good, I don’t want to upset this balance. Dextrose won’t alter the flavour.
Assuming this turns out tasty, I’ll also look at hopping it, which will make it a proper beer.
So we’ll give this a week and see what happens!
-Chas
So I bought a juicer by mistake.
As you may be aware, juicers make juice. If one pours this juice into a container, pitches some yeast, and then seals it with an airlock, one has a lovely cider. This is why I bought a juicer. According to the instructions, I also have the option of drinking the juice before I ferment it, but I don’t see a reason why I would do such a thing…
My new juicer!
So this thing is hardly top of the line, but it will get the job done. I’ve opted for the model that can fit a whole apple down the chute, just in case I want to do that. I’ve done some research on juicing – maybe if I really get into this whole cider thing I’ll discuss juicing methods at length.
I’ve looked into cider making and the process is pretty simple:
The whole purpose of this cider endeavor is to just play around with different fruits and see what happens, so I’ll keep you updated. I’ve already got a small batch of apple and rhubarb going in my new 5 litre carboy. I’m not going to do a full report on this one though as it was all really haphazard. If it turns out remotely OK, I’ll do a proper batch of it and give the full recipe.
I have already learned a few things:
I want to do some brewing this weekend. If Mikey is available, we may do a lager similar to the big batch we did a few weeks ago, but tweaking the recipe slightly. Alternatively, if I’m able to get enough apples, I might have a play.
Then again, I haven’t discussed the prospect of Random Cider with Mikey – he may love or hate this idea, but if he loves it, we may end up making cider together.
Regardless, I’m going to start experimenting with Random Cider as time goes by.
-Chas
We make home brew 