cider – Page 6 – 9stripe Brewing

Been busy brewing and stuff the last few weeks. Brewed twice at the local Homebrew shop for club demos and to replenish the sample stocks there. I even took the Mash and boil on a road trip brew.

Oh road trip brewing with this Mash and boil is soooo much less hassle. This is gonna make for some summer traveling. I will have to make a little checklist post for this.

Also I have really been exploring the cider and mead side of things. I just kegged up a lower gravity (7%) Saison mead. And bottled a higher gravity (9%) Blueberry cider! Oh,, almost forgot the Farmers Market cider. Each week at the local market I bought “something” and froze them for the end of season cider. This year it was apple/red currant/strawberry/sour cherry/raspberry/beet cider

As good as these new forays turned out, I may have to split time being a brewery and a cider mill. I think its fun for a lot of reasons. First being,, there is more involvement it feels like. With beer you do your 4 hour thing and you dont look at it for a month. With these quick ciders, I can piddle around with the whole fruit/veg prepping, staggered nutrients, degassing, bottling… things like that. Might be a turn off for some,, but its puts me back in touch with my products, like the old days!

Take a look at this Blueberry cider!

3 gallons apple juice, fresh pressed or cheap stuff. They both work
2- containers frozen concentrate blueberry/pomegranate mix
2 lbs sugar
3 tsp nutrient (split)
US-04 or any English strain yeast
Mix everything and 2 tsp of the nutrient. shake it up hard to oxygenate. A day after fermenting add the other 1 tsp of nutrient.
After 3 weeks bottle or keg @ 3 volumes

My cider cider keg is getting low so need to get it filled soon. The black graff went over well so I’ll make another one.

This time I’ll go back to the lighter version I used to make. Like today’s Reds Apple ale.

1 prehopped extract beer kit
4 gallons apple juice or cider
Yeast of your choice

I wanted to used an ESB kit but they were out, so I grabbed this old ale kit. I’m guessing it will be a bit more raisiny but that should be just fine. I’ll just be using the enclosed yeast packet this time around.

Easy stuff here. I just heated up a gallon of water and stirred in the extract. Just wanna get it liquid enough to pour into the carboy
(If your extract is still hot that’s fine, but pour in a gallon of your juice first to buffer the heat or you’ll probably break the carboy)

Pour in the rest of the juice and add your yeast. That’s it.