Cider Results

Hey friends, this is a post a long time coming.  I apologize for the major delay in letting you all know how our cider turned out.

After the first step of brewing that I showed you all in our first post, we did a quick transfer of the whole lot into a bucket so that we could clean out the yeast that had settled on the bottom.  Once cleaned out, we transferred it back into the glass carboy and let it brew again for another week.  We could have bottled it at this point, but we hoped that this quick cleaning out of the yeast and the settled solids would lead to a clearer final product.

After 3 total weeks of brewing and bubbling in the carboy, it was bottling time.  We saved a lot of old bottles and growlers but still needed a dozen 22 oz bottles.  At the same time we also bought some priming sugar and caps.  (Dan had the capper.)  The priming sugar is a small packet of corn sugar that is perfectly measured for 5 gallons of cider.  This adds just the right amount of sugar for the yeast to feast on in the bottles to create the perfect amount of fizzy carbonation.  Putting in too much sugar would create too much pressure in the bottles which may cause them to explode.  (No one needs exploding glass bottles.)

As you can see in the video, all of this process involves a lot of sterilization of the utensils and a siphoning tube to transfer the cider from carboys to buckets to bottles.

We tasted the first bottle about 10 days after we bottled it and was surprised at how much of a kick it had.  It was definitely on the drier side.  We had been so used to sweeter ciders that are mass produced today that we didn't realize what real cider tasted like.  It smelled really good and definitely held true to it's estimated 8.5-9% alcohol because we felt the buzz pretty quick.  Shawn did some research and we found that back in the day of Thomas Jefferson, when clean water was harder to find than cider, people would drink cider instead of water.

Since then, we've been drinking it really slowly, taking a bottle or two to parties and enjoying a bottle between us every now and then.  What we've noticed is that as it ages, the kick is replaced by a softer apple flavor.  We thought it was good at first, but it just keeps getting better.  We're thinking about saving a bottle or two for 6 months to a year to see how it ages.

All in all, this was a project that was not only really fun but really rewarding.  It feels so good to know that we're getting drunk off of our own hard work.

In case you were wondering, the total cost breaks down to:
$60-Rental of cider press
$20-A dozen 22 oz bottles and caps (Which we can reuse for next time.)
$20-Yeast and sugars

Total: $100 (We think.  We can't remember for sure.  This is also thanks to our friend Dan who had all the equipment.)

For Christmas, I bought Shawn a bottle of dry cider at a fancy beer store in Wallingford which was $14.  We tasted it, and though it was really good, we decided ours was better.  (We're not biased or anything. :))  If we calculate the amount of cider we made based on the price of the store-bought kind, we came to over $325 dollars worth of cider.  Yeah baby!

Final thought: We want to do it again.

Oh, and here is the YouTube link to the video.  http://youtu.be/Qpz8AcZi8YU

Makin' Hard Apple Cider!

Here it is folks!  I took our footage we got from this weekend's cider making extravaganza and made an easy-to-watch video.  The weather was perfect, everybody had a great time, it was just a perfect fall day.  Enjoy!

 

The words are a little too small to read when viewed small, but blogger made the quality too crappy to view full screen.  I've uploaded it onto YouTube so you can watch it here.

To see part 2, click here.

Sunday Harvest

This might be the last Sunday harvest post in a while.  Now that the official growing season is kaput, we're not getting stuff regularly.  So I'll post these when I do get stuff.

This week's word: APPLES.  And yes, we made cider.  I'm making a video about it so this picture will just have to be a little taste of what's to come.  Stay tuned!

75 pounds, maybe?  Either way, a lot.

Bubba Gump Apples

Apple crisp, apple pie, apple sauce, apple cider... I feel like a Bubba Gump with all the apples we have up in here!

So I told you folks about the apple crisp I made last week from our backyard apples that fell during the windstorm.  Well, they're falling off the tree with little more that a light breeze these days, so we're taking that to mean that these apples are ready for picking!  Shawn got up on the roof of the party shack and we picked some good ones from there.  We'll still need to borrow my dad's tall ladder to get up to the ones higher up, but we got a good 40 pounds or so with just this attempt.

The really good ones we saved in a separate bucket for good eatin'.

Most of them had evidence of bugs getting inside so I cut them open right there as Shawn tossed them down to me and I did a quick quality inspection and chucked the really bad ones into the compost.  The ok ones I cored and the buggy parts cut out and saved in a bowl.  Once I got a good ten pounds of these, I washed them and Shawn and I peeled them.  A majority of them were cubed and went into my big stainless steel pot to be turned into apple sauce.  Into a separate bowl went some other ones that were sliced for apple pie.

I'll give you my recipes for both of these, but for both, I didn't follow any recipe myself, let alone measure much so these quantities are best guesses.  Sorry.

Good Ol' Home Made Apple Pie
(Ever had an apple pie from a store that sucked?  You know the kinds with the gelatinous goo that surrounds the undercooked still slightly crispy apples?  Well making your own apple pie at home will help you realize how inferior those pies really are!)

The last slice...

Ingredients
8-10 apples, peeled, cored, and sliced thinly
1/2 cup sugar
2 tbs agave syrup (I've been putting this shit in everything!  It's my new fav sweetener.)
2 tbs flour
1 tbs lemon juice
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix above ingredients together.  Prepare two pie crusts.  Fill pie pan with apple mixture and top with second pie crust.  Crimp edges together and make sure to slice a couple air holes in the top.  Top with a nice sprinkling of cinnamon sugar and put into preheated 350 degree oven.  Bake for 45 minutes or until some bubbles of deliciousness start showing from your air holes.  Serve warm with ice cream for a dessert or chilled with a cup of coffee for breakfast.  Delish!

Grandma's Apple Sauce
(Much like apple pies, I don't really like store bought apple sauce because it reminds me of wet sawdust.  This applesauce is chunky, with a touch of cinnamon, just like my grandma always has with dinner at her house.  I know most of you haven't had dinner at my grandma's house but trust me, it's always awesome.)

Ingredients
5 pounds of apples peeled, cored, and cubed
1/2 cup white sugar (or to taste)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup agave syrup (here it is again!)
1 tbs lemon juice
5 cups water

Canning Stuff
Mason jars with lids and rings (All washed and sanitized)
Large stockpot that will hold the mason jars
Tongs to grab hot jars and stuff
Funnel (optional, I made one out of the top of a bottle of lemon juice.)

Wash the jars, lids, and rings in a dishwasher or in hot soapy water.  Fill the larger stock pot with water and place it on the stove to heat up till hot, but not boiling.  Add the mason jars before the water gets too hot and have them wait there while the apple sauce is made.  As far as how many mason jars to have ready, just guess and prepare one or two more jars than you might need just in case you guessed wrong.

Put all the ingredients into your other large soup pot.  The water amount is really a guess, you just need enough to bring the water level up to just below the level as the amount of apples you have.  Put it on medium heat, stirring occasionally.  Once the apples heat up and start cooking down, stir them more.  This will break them down little by little so you have a sauce and not justa bunch of soggy apple bits.  Once the apple mixture has boiled for a little bit and is the consistency you like, it's time to start canning.

Get your tongs ready.  Pull out a jar and fill it quickly with sauce (using the funnel like in the pic or not.)  It's generally a less messy procedure with one.  Fill the jar to a 1/2 inch from the top and quickly screw on the lid and the ring.  Put it back into your large pot with the hot water.

Fill the rest of the jars until you have no more sauce and place them all into the large pot to process.  The water level in this pot should be an inch over the top of the jars, but mine's not like that because I like to break rules.  Do as I say, not as I do, folks.

Process (or boil) those jars for 15 minutes, then gently lift them out to cool and wait for the familiar "plink!" as your jars seal in the goodness.  If done correctly, these jars should last in a cool dry place for 2 years or so.

And yes, I did mention apple cider at the beginning of this post.  That is for next time...