Cider
Stories about making Hard Cider
The Cider Year in Review
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Thu, 12/31/2009 - 10:13On this last day of 2009, I’m looking back and the successes and failures of 2009. In this post, I want to explore what has gone on with my Cider making. This was prompted by an email from an online cider making buddy talking about his experiences.
In his first batch, he used campden, champagne yeast, maple syrup and sugar tablets in the bottle. He described the outcome as having a lot of bite and high ABV. In his second batch, he used a Belgian yeast, maple syrup, cinnamon sticks and bottled it with a bit of dry malt extract. I like some of the ideas that he experimented with. He said he thought the second batch was a little nicer and that they were ‘way too drinkable’ with a little ice and raw apple cider.
At the Hynes household, I am just finishing making my fifth batch. The first batch was started in September and used a Belgian Trappist yeast. As with most of my batches, I bottle off a little bit of it after the first fermentation, and then do a second fermentation before bottling off the whole batch. In this batch, I added two cups of Maple Syrup to the second fermentation. For each bottling, I like to set aside three bottles as a reserve to taste sometime in the future to see how it ages. With that am down to eight bottles of the first batch left. It came out quite nicely.
The second batch was made with pear cider. Some people really like it. However, for Kim and I it is a bit bitter. I have fourteen bottles of the pear cider left. I’ve been kicking around the idea of mixing it with some of the other cider to see how it comes out as part of mix.
The third batch was very similar to the first batch. I started it in mid October, this time using an Oktoberfest yeast. Again, I added two cups of Maple Syrup to the second fermentation. This batch also came out very well and we have fourteen bottles left.
The fourth batch was interesting. We started it in the beginning of November using some special heirloom cider from Beardsley Cider Mill. The cider was more tart than most fresh ciders with some quince added. I wanted to keep this pure, so I didn’t add any Maple Syrup to the second fermentation. We used a Weissen yeast and the tartness survived the fermentation. It is still fairly new, and we’ll see how it ages. It is a little tart for my tastes, but Kim says it tastes good. I’m interested in seeing what happens if I combine it with some of the pear cider and perhaps a little maple syrup cider.
Yesterday, we racked off the fifth and final batch of cider. The first test seemed pretty good. However, this time, we’re looking at doing the second fermentation in a different carboy, so I haven’t bottled off any of the first fermentation.
So, have you made hard cider this year? What worked well? What didn’t?
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Christmas Day Blog Post
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 12/25/2009 - 12:50“And so this is Christmas…” Last night, we ate the goose. This morning we opened the presents and now everyone is off in their own little worlds with various prized possessions. My big present of the year was the Nokia N900, which I received early and have used extensively. I expect to write much more about it over the coming days. Part of my horoscope summed it up nice, “Even though it's Christmas Day, you can't help but look at your phone”.
Other big gifts for me included a book on cider making and a hydrometer. I’ll use this to get a sense at how strong the cider I’m making really is. It will be estimates for this year. Next year I’ll perhaps get a little more precise in my cider making log and calculations about the cider.
I also received a painting that Miranda did of me as well as a comfy hat. Pictures of these will go up online at some point, and may already be up on one of my daughters’ social media sites.
Kim is reading a book about Serenity, Mairead is reading a book in Spanish, Miranda is watching Bones on her laptop, and Fiona is playing in Gaia with her new Linux laptop. Barley and Reilly are doing their dog and cat sort of things, and didn’t really get into their Christmas presents, although there is one treat that Barley did really like.
Social Media provided interesting present ideas. Miranda, who has gone by the name Gingerbread Ferret online, received ginger bread ferrets, and a ferret shaped cookie cutter. Mairead who had gone by the name Dragon Moon years ago, regifted the jacket Kim had embroidered a dragon against a full moon on to Fiona, after adding some decorations of her own.
A few virtual friends have stopped by and wished our family a Merry Christmas. Thank you. To all my readers today, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas. I’ll save the Happy New Year part till later when I get a chance to think about the year that is almost gone and the year that is coming.
Merry Christmas.
Free, as in Hard Cider
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 12/08/2009 - 13:43On two different mailing lists recently, the discussions between Gratis and Libre, or “Free, as in Beer” versus “Free as in Speech” has come up. Since I’ve started making my own Hard Cider and giving away a fair amount of it, it struck me that thinking about Free Hard Cider provides an interesting way of exploring “Free, as in Beer”.
In many ways brewing hard cider is similar to writing blog posts. First, and foremost, I do both of them because I enjoy doing it. Then, I place my blog posts up on the Internet for anyone to freely read. While I’m less liberal with my hard cider, I also give away a fair amount of it.
If people like my blog posts, I am grateful when they add a comment in response to my blog posts, essentially, freely giving me information about their reactions or other information they think I might appreciate. If they buy something from one of my sponsors, thereby generating revenue for me, that is also appreciated.
In a similar manner, much of my cider is given away at pot luck events. We bring things that we like to make and give it away freely and others do the same thing. As a result, I often have a nice Mexican Layer Dip to eat with the cider that I drink.
Another interesting aspect of Free Hard Cider, which perhaps tells us something about production and distribution of other things is that the cost of the bottles is greater than the cost of the cider itself. In other words, the big expense is in distribution. To deal with this, I try to recover as many of my used cider bottles as possible to reuse them. In a similar manner, the cost of distributing the written words has always been expensive; printing presses, trucks to deliver the papers, newsboys to take the paper the final mile, and so on. Yet as more of the written word gets distributed online, the cost of distribution decreases. The same is applying to lots of things that can be delivered online and is causing many to rethink their pricing models. This has been a big issue in the news and music industries and is likely to spread.
Of course my cider production and blogging are avocational interests. What about the journalist who needs to get paid for his work? Are their ‘free’ models that could work in this manner? Some of my friends might see this as a return to bartering or some sort of socialist enterprise. Yet this presents an interesting way of rethinking our work. Would we be better off if more people worked at what they loved, in hopes of getting enough compensation to live instead of people toiling away at things they are less interested in out of a contractual obligation that provides them of a somewhat steady income stream?
Perhaps at a party someday soon, I’ll eat some Mexican Layer Dip, drink some cider, and discuss these ideas with friends. Until that time, feel free to leave your comments here.
Hard Cider Update
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Wed, 12/02/2009 - 20:49This evening, we racked our batch of hard cider that we’ve been brewing from Beardsley Orchard’s special heirloom batch of cider. We used a Weizen yeast and let it work for three weeks and two days. We probably would have racked it off a few days earlier, but we’ve been busy with other things. So, the yeast had pretty much stopped working.
As with most of our ciders, we start with a six gallon batch. When the fermentation has substantially slowed down, we rack off five gallons to a smaller carboy, and bottle the remaining cider. So, from this batch, we bottled three 22 ounce bottles and eight twelve ounce bottles. I like to keep three 22 ounce bottles from each batch as sort of a reserve. At some point, I’ll open some of them to see how they’ve aged. However, most of our cider gets drunk before it gets a chance to age. Other than the reserve, we have no bottles from last year and were down to three or four bottles from a few of our batches this year.
We also pour off a large glass to test the cider. This batch has a tart fruity taste; dry, with a touch of astringency, but nicely keeping the apple tastes. Some of this may be because of the Weizen yeast, and some of it may be because of the heirloom blend, which includes quince.
We’ll let the five gallon carboy bubble for a few days. Based on how it is looking, I suspect that we may be ready to bottle the rest of this batch by the weekend. Then, we will start off on our final special holiday batch.
We have special considerations for the yeast for this final batch. People have said that the sugar content of late season cider tends to be higher, so we’re looking for a yeast that can produce a higher alcohol content. Yet we also want one that can tolerate lower temperatures since we generally leave the heat down low in our house during the winter. Also, I tend to avoid yeast that ‘produce clean dry profiles with low ester formation’. I like to experiment with the different flavors the yeast can add.
From this I’m thinking that I’ll skip the Eau de vie yeast. It requires a warmer house, and comes out cleaner. Champagne yeast can tolerate a colder house, but also doesn’t leave a lot of flavor. Instead, I’m leaning towards various red wine yeasts, Zinfandel, Rudesheimer, Chianti, or Chateau Red all tend to tolerate lower temperatures, higher alcohol content and leave more of the flavors. We’ll see what the brewery store has in stock.
Hard Cider Update
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Tue, 11/10/2009 - 18:45It’s been a few weeks since I’ve provided an update on the cider making, but there isn’t a lot to update. Last Saturday, we racked off our latest batch of hard cider. This cider had slowly fermented for three weeks using an Oktoberfest yeast. It got very cloudy and produced a lot of sediment. When we racked it off, we bottled a dozen bottles to see how the first fermentation ages and to have enough room in the five gallon carboy. Like with a previous batch, we added, two cups of maple syrup to boost the sugar and add a nice little taste. It is now on its second fermentation.
This freed up the six gallon carboy for us to go get some special cider. Every year, Beardsley’s Cider Mill makes a special batch of cider for brewers. It is made of an assortment of apples, including some heirlooms, as well as some quince. This year it was 60% norther spy, 20% winesap, 10% red and golden delicious with the remaining 10% a mixture of Baldwin, golden russet, Spitzenberg, an antique apple variety and Quince. I believe they made about 600 gallons which were all sold within a couple of hours.
A group of hard cider brewers come every year for this cider and they share various hard ciders they’ve made. There were ciders flavored with raspberry, elderberry, and whiskey. There were various methods that it had been fermented and aged. Some cider was very old. Other cider was much more recent. It was a fun and lively discussion. My pear cider, or perry, was well received and the maple apple cider was also enjoyed. I picked up my six gallons and headed home.
An online cider brewing friend went over there a few hours later only to find out that he had missed his opportunity. So, he’ll be making some other hard cider this time around. I’ve also chatted with various other friends and relatives online who are experimenting with making cider and sharing their stories.
For this batch, we are using a Bavarian Wheat yeast. It has started off a little slowly, but is starting to pick up speed. I figure I’ll let it go for three or four weeks and then rack it off and start our final batch for the year.
