Archive - Oct 2, 2009
Maple Cider, Pear Cider
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/02/2009 - 14:43This afternoon, Kim and I bottled hard cider batch 2009-1B. We started this batch back on September 14th using a Belgian Trappist yeast. It fermented quickly and vigorously. We bottled off the first part of it on September 25th. Then, we added two cups of maple syrup and allowed it to ferment until today. It didn’t seem to ferment quite as actively, but still there was a lot of sediment produced on the bottom.
We sampled it last night, and it was very good. So, we decided to bottle it today. It still had a little sweetness and a little fizz, so we didn’t add any more sugars. Hopefully it will get a little more fizzy in the bottles, but even if it doesn’t, it is pretty good as it is.
Meanwhile, I received a comment on one of my previous posts that led to a good discussion on Facebook. A first time hard cider brewer from another part of Connecticut was having a little difficulty. We compared notes and he is on his way. He did make a comment about pear cider, also known as perry. I did a little searching online and found that High Hill Orchard in Meriden sells fresh pear juice. I called them up to confirm as well as to see if they knew of people who had brewed perry and would sell me pear juice in bulk. Their pear juice costs about 30% more than fresh apple cider, but that seemed within the range, so I will head over tomorrow afternoon when he is making cider about buy six or seven gallons of pear juice. I’m planning on using the Belgian Lambic yeast which is what we used for 2008-2 and not adding any sugars. The Lambic yeast worked very nicely last year allowing the apple flavors to shine through, so I’m hoping for similar results with the hard pear cider.
It will be a few weeks before we know how this batch turns out but stay tuned. If you’ve done any interesting experimentation with hard ciders, let me know.
Follow Friday
Submitted by Aldon Hynes on Fri, 10/02/2009 - 09:55@Joakimbaage @joosterizer @MikeCK88 @Bastelyon @gunniho
@gametopius @evcinnyc @moon @MacTavishBest @jst418 @torontocitylife @nathandaschle @TheJusticeDept @tracyrusso @ltoomre
This week’s Follow Friday post is dominated by people from the #nygames conference. Leading the list is @Joakimbaage who was one of the conference organizers. One of the most interesting speakers was @joosterizer who writes the blog Waffler and is working on a PhD at Columbia. His thesis is tentatively titled, “Games as Communication: the Practice of Discursive Game Play“.
@MikeCK88 of NPD was another interesting speaker that was on Twitter. NPD provides great gaming data and Mike does a great job of presenting the data.
There were breakout discussion sessions which I believe is a great thing to have at conferences like this. The session I attended was lead by @Bastelyon of Promethium Marketing. He shares the same last name with me, so perhaps we are distant cousins. In addition, Promethium Marketing has a great URL for those interested in gaming: PMFTW.com.
I also spoke a bit with @gunniho, CEO of Clara. Clara has a tag line, “The web is talking, we are listening.” I was impressed with @gunniho and think that Clara is a company to keep an eye on.
A few other people that I chatted with at the conference and/or on Twitter included @gametopius @evcinnyc and @moon.
@MacTavishBest retweeted one of my posts from the conference. She runs Best PR, a San Francisco based PR firm. She writes some interesting Tweets and I’ll keep an eye on her PR firm.
@jst418 also tweeted a little bit about my coverage of the #nygames conference. He is an old college buddy of mine and it is great to see him on Twitter. @torontocitylife and I also talked a little via Twitter about ideas coming out of the conference. I know @torontocitylife from EntreCard.
Moving beyond the #nygames conference, this week I started following @nathandaschle. Nathan is Executive Director of the Democratic Governors Association. I was on a conference call with him earlier this week. I got a lot of great background information on that call, and I hope to write up some reflections on it soon.
Another interesting new follow for me is @TheJusticeDept. @tracyrusso has been instrumental in the successful launch of their new online presence.
Finally, a special shout out to @ltoomre who is celebrating his birthday today.
That’s it for my Follow Friday post. Who are you following?
