Starting a batch of hard cider. · 3:14am Sep 30th, 2016
Hard cider has a wonderful history, and I encourage all of you to read up on it. Particularly about, crab apples, cultivar grafting, and cider verities. I don't want to go into a full classroom mode here, but I will go over a few things.
Traditional American cider was made mostly crab apples. As they planted from seed, very few trees produced apples that could be eaten. These apples are too tannic to eat, but tannin settles out during fermentation, leaving their juice drinkable. There are also "cider" cultivars, trees grafted for use in making hard cider. Some of these can be eaten, some can't. Unfortunately, I do not have access to cider apples or crab apples. I have to use entirely sweet apples. This would normally make a bland, and overly sweet cider, but I compensate for this by adding tannins artificially. You can but tannin from any brewing supply shop. I'll go into a little more detail here in the Imgur link.
I like starting my cider when the nights are cool, but the days still hot. The shift in temperature adds a a little character to the end cider. Yeast produced its own flavor, and those will change with their temperature. There's whole books written on this topic, I'll let you plumb that depth to your own liking. I'll leave the cider in the fermentor for for about two months. I want a few good frosts before I move it off the yeast, and into a second container to age before bottling. I'll talk more about this in the next post.
Before I start brewing, I'll share something a an old man told me many years ago. "When you make something, what ever is in you heart at that moment will be forever in what you created. Anger, frustration, love, or laughter, it'll forever be woven into you work."
With that said, lets get into the proper mood to make cider.
Now: if you're interested in seeing the process, follow this link.
Feel free to ask questions.
Some of the bloodiest battles in the American Revolution were fought for cider.
It was super important for rations and the morale of the troops. At that time, America drank more cider than beer, because of the tax situation. Beer was for the wealthy. There is a proud and noble tradition for cider, and cider was also one of the things that provoked the Whiskey Rebellion, which lead to the first real act of gross tyranny by the fledgeling US government.
Men died for it, for the freedom to have it, and to trade with it. Something I always remember when I tip back a bottle or a glass.
Crab apples make for some of the best applejack too. Freeze the cider, toss the ice, and increase the alcohol potency.
I once made "apple beer" - half malt, half apple juice from concentrate. I say that cuz concentrate must be much cheaper than apple juice you buy. At least in my country it is.
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Bonus fact: Johnny Appleseed was famous because he planted crab apple trees for cider.
Mmm... ice-jacked applejack. That stuff is so good. Hangover fuel, but delicious.
We have some family land up in the Cumberland Appalachia. Not much, but no one is doing anything with it. Sometime in the next few years, I'm going to plant a proper cider orchard on it. A good mix of crab apples, and traditional cider cultivars. The Monticello has preserved sever cider verities, and you can buy saplings from them. Which go to show how important cider was to the colonials. Thomas Jefferson himself made sure that his favorite apples would be preserved.
And while I'm rambling. The old debate of "is Sweet Apple Acres' cider is hard or not": their cider is most defiantly not hard. They could very well put up a little hard cider on the side, but what we see them selling is not.
A: It's fresh. it was literally juiced the same day. It takes a good month for the yeast to do its work. Even if we MAGIC the yeast into doing a month's work in 5min, the cider still needs to age. Cider tastes like hell until it's ages at least 3 months. It's more like a wine than a beer.
B: "But it's got foam, only carbonated hard cider foams" This isn't true. Not quite anyway. Very fresh fruit has a little gas trapped in it. This is why fresh coffee has more crema when brewed. Not to mention the stone wheel they grind the apples with will froth it up quite a bit.
Here's the real life version a a stone cider mill.
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C: The farm is called Sweet Apple Acres. This tells us the specialize in eating apples, not cider apples. Which makes me wounder where the Crab Apple Orchard is. Somewhere out there, there has to be a Apple clan specialized in making cider. I started to write a story about that once, but it got derailed with the CMC getting their marks.
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How'd that turn out?
I gave up on beer. Too complicated for me.
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It was okay. Cidery :-) I made a mistake by over-carbonating it... It was one-time experiment. Now that I think about it, you better boil the juice if you make it from concentrate (or you can add a lot of yeast and hope for the best), so maybe it's not worth it.
Pony-cider must contain alcohol (magical instant fermentation and aging, ofc). Otherwise I don't see how ponies could survive in the crazy environment they live in.