Another simple cheaty cider

Cider

I am exploring this cheaty way of making fizzy cider using  Pat Mack’s Home Brewing Caps (I just love the sound of that and hope that it is really his or her name).  You mix the ingredients in the picture and add a pinch of yeast.  In this case I had the dregs of the last batch in the bottom of the bottle so just mixed it all together and left it in a warm part of the house.

My hope is to make a light cider that I can share with the kids without feeling guilty.  A strong memory of mine is my grandfather (who didn’t drink) serving cider with meals because it had been bought by my grandmother and was “non-alcoholic”.

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Wine clearing – looks a bit green to me

Wine

500D_1704I checked on the white wine today, which should be well on the way to clarifying and looking “bright” (according to my instructions). (According to my instructions it should have an airlock too, but I’ve run out.)

Looks possibly like it might be clearing.  A bit.  Maybe. And a rather green tinge to the naked eye.  It needs to be racked off in a week or so (if clear) and I have just one demijohn left.

Christmas Beer – racking off

Beer

2013-10-23 16.01.01I am very new to this lark (although did have some fun with the brewzer from the now defunct miracle-beer.com a few years ago).  I thought I would try a Christmas Ale to start with – it would have a few weeks to condition before the holidays.  It was pretty straight forward to get up and running, though I did find patience an issue when waiting for the mixture to cool down and I also dropped the unsterilised (other than the bulb) thermometer in to the mix.

The instructions say wait 10 days or until the fermentation has ceased and the specific gravity (SG) is 1020.  My wife and I eyeballed the hydrometer together and decided it was spot on after six days.

The instructions say that all beers work best when left to clarify so I “racked them off” (see how I use jargon now) in to a couple of demijohns I had clean and waiting.

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500D_1699Now they sit in the garage for a couple of weeks before being bottled and I have to hope that the yeast is alive enough after that to give a nice fiz when they are opened.  At over 6% proof and only having 1 litre bottles to put it in, it could be a very Happy Christmas.

 

Scrumpy

Uncategorised,

I wanted to make scrumpy, which I *think* is made from apples crushed with water as opposed to cider which is made from freshly squeezed apple juice.  I went to the lovely local library and found BREWING: A step-by-ste guide to making beer, wine and cider by Jack thompson.  I then followed the recipe for “Scrumpy Cider”.  Well, I say followed, but as usual my impatience got the better of me.  It says “roughly chop the apples” then cover with lots of boiling water, then “crush every few days”.  I did this but nothing happened for 5 days.  I imagined that the yeast had been fried.  Maybe I should have let the water cool down.

Anyhow, I came home 5 days after it started to find still no action at all.  I blitzed the apples with a hand held food mixer and shoved in some bakers’ yeast.  Apparently some recipes have raw meat, but I didn’t fancy that.  It got going right away and five more days later it looks more interesting.

The next step is in a few days when I mix it with other ingredients.

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