The hard stuff
 

Now that I have my grapes crushed and the yeast bubbling away, I am thinking
hard apple cider.

Has anyone made hard apple cider? I would guess it is made the same way wine
is. I have looked for a recipe both on the internet and at my local home
brew store and have found them to be somewhat simplistic, or I am tiring to
make it harder than it need to be. Would you suggest making it like wine or
the just leave the juice out in a warm place until it changes?

Roy

Roy boy wrote:
> Now that I have my grapes crushed and the yeast bubbling away, I am thinking
> hard apple cider.
---snip

What kind of grapes are we talking about here?

SG Brix

isn't there a methanol issue with the fiber contained in apple cider?

--
billb
Sorry but I don't kiss ass, yours included.
"Roy boy" > wrote in message
...
> Now that I have my grapes crushed and the yeast bubbling away, I am
thinking
> hard apple cider.
>
> Has anyone made hard apple cider? I would guess it is made the same way
wine
> is. I have looked for a recipe both on the internet and at my local home
> brew store and have found them to be somewhat simplistic, or I am tiring
to
> make it harder than it need to be. Would you suggest making it like wine
or
> the just leave the juice out in a warm place until it changes?
>
> Roy
>
>

Roy boy wrote:
> Has anyone made hard apple cider? I would guess it is made the same way wine
> is. I have looked for a recipe both on the internet and at my local home
> brew store and have found them to be somewhat simplistic, or I am tiring to
> make it harder than it need to be. Would you suggest making it like wine or
> the just leave the juice out in a warm place until it changes?
>
> Roy

The recipes you're reading are correct. The difference between hard
cider and apple wine IS the simplicity. To make a "traditional" hard
cider, you want a low sugar start, with the fairly high acid level,
fermented with a cider yeast (ale yeast if you can't find it). You end
up with an alcohol level intermediate between ale and wine, tart
tasting, that doesn't need more than a few months aging to reach its
peak. Start now, and you'll have something excellent for your winter
holidays.

Do a google groups search in this forum. I had some fair results last
year with store-bought cider and some EC-1118 lees. The cat's meow -
http://brewery.org/brewery/cm3/recs/11_toc.html - has a wide range of
recipies. Read them all, and see what you can cobble together to get
the cider you want.

Watch out when using the Cat's Meow database... it's compiled from all
sorts of fourms over the years, and although there's some good recipes
in there, many have never even been tried and some are outright trash.
I think the best advice for cider is keep it simple.

Cheers,
Travis

> wrote in message
oups.com...
> Roy boy wrote:
>> Now that I have my grapes crushed and the yeast bubbling away, I am
>> thinking
>> hard apple cider.
> ---snip
>
> What kind of grapes are we talking about here?
>
> SG Brix
>
I believe they are vitis vinifera from trying to match up the leaf. I have
not been able to find what the common name is yet. The only thing I have
found is a French winery that says that it uses them but give no more
information. The grape is small ranging from the size of a large pea to the
size of a large cranberry. They are a dark purple color when ripe and had a
23 brix when picked.

This is the first time I have done grapes and I am surprised to see how the
yeast is causing a churning of the must from the amount of gas released.
Last night I tried to slow down the yeast by ceiling the bucket and putting
the air lock on it, but there was so much gas being produced that all the
water from the lock was blown out of it. The must then plugged the hole and
started putting pressure on the lid. I ended up taking half of the 5 gallons
and putting it in the fridge to cool it off slowing down the yeast.

Roy

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrew_lea/

Have a look at this, and learn.

Stephen SG
"Roy boy" > wrote in message
...
| Now that I have my grapes crushed and the yeast bubbling away, I am
thinking
| hard apple cider.
|
| Has anyone made hard apple cider? I would guess it is made the same way
wine
| is. I have looked for a recipe both on the internet and at my local home
| brew store and have found them to be somewhat simplistic, or I am tiring
to
| make it harder than it need to be. Would you suggest making it like wine
or
| the just leave the juice out in a warm place until it changes?
|
| Roy
|
|

"Last night I tried to slow down the yeast by ceiling the bucket and
putting
the air lock on it, but there was so much gas being produced that all
the
water from the lock was blown out of it"

Be careful with this. You can run into 2 problems:

1) If the must blows over the airlock, you can get contamination
problems.

2) If the yeast begins to choke on carbon dioxide (ie it can't release
fast enough through the airlock) and gets too stressed, you can end up
with H2S, hydrogen sulphide.