Forbidden fruit .....juice?

Having caught the homebrew fever, it's only natural that I'd try making a hard cider, even if it's only because of my fondness for cider from Wick's.

Wick's Apple House is a staple of my childhood and summers at the lake. Just a few miles from Round Lake, we headed over for doughnuts after church in the summer or for fresh, 100% apple 'squeezin's.'

This fall, I picked up five gallons of cider and brought it home to experiment with in my 'big-kids chemistry set.' A.K.A: Homebrew Equipment.

I don't plan to go into my recipe, largely because I haven't bottled/conditioned/tasted the final product yet, and because I want to keep it to myself for awhile.

After just two weeks, the alcohol content measured 11.8% by volume! Here it is all cloudy and brown, on the left, when the experiment was just getting started:

About eight weeks after initially pitching the yeast, the cider has already begun to clear out nicely:

Naturally, I collected another sample and saved it for tasting. Sean, Jami, and I were all pleasantly surprised (especially Sean) with this taste:
.

...and for those of you who are curoius, the ABV is just under 12%. Most of the fermentation did take place in those first two weeks.

Fallen off the Blaggon

So it's been two months since I've posted to my blog; so what? That should mean I have a wealth of material, right? Certainly so!

This is the photo from the invitation for"A brew or two, a brew or two, a brew or two, or three, or four!"

Back in October I had brewed up two batches of beer in two weeks. Jami decided that if I was going to be brewing on such a rapid schedule that I had to make room for more on a similar schedule. Since she and I really couldn't drink five gallons of beer a week and still keep our jobs, we decided that our own "Beer Tasting" was in order.

I brewed up an American Brown Ale from Perfect Brewing Supply in Libertyville and bottled that. Then I brewed up an IPA and used a Corny Keg as the secondary fermenter and served that straight from the keg. I suspect that racking to the keg was the key factor in why my IPA tasted more like a Belgian Ale. It wasn't bad, it was very interesting and well received. I'm just upset because it didn't turn out like i expected and I'm not sure I could, or would want to, re-create the brew.

If there could be a bad side to a beer party, it was having so much beer left over! This is my own fault too; in the invite for the party I gave those who might be afraid of homebrewed beer the option to bring a sample of their own favorite beer to drink and share. Of course everyone exercised this option and my home brewing pals brought samples of their beer as well as their favorites from other breweries.

Needless to say, we had plenty of tasty options.

So many options in fact, that we didn't have room in the fridge for leftover food - we filled it with leftover beers!

Also, I'd hate to forget mentioning the cider that Jeff brought over; he and I had very similar ideas for samples of Wick's Apple Cider. He brought over a nice spiced hard cider in a growler ...that I need to return soon!

Jami and I couldn't bring ourselves to dump the Belgian IPA, but once that was gone I was able to put the fridge back into some kind of order; it still took us a while to clear out these leftovers!

Now that's what I call recycling!

Bottling Day!! ...ok, so really, it's not exciting. It's a pain in the butt.

I'm a bit neurotic when it comes to cleaning my bottles; but that's necessary if you don't want your beer to spoil; that's one of many good habits I learned from Happy Mike when I brewed with him in Yokosuka, many years ago. If that's any sort of sign, I'm gonna be producing some great beer with a little more practice.

To help ensure that I get everything out of the bottle, I fill them with water and put them into my brew kettle to warm them up. I don't usually put much soap in the bottle because I brush them, and then rinse using a sterilizing solution. If the bottles weren't rinsed well once they became empty they develop a crusty film inside. Warming them up really gets any gunk loose from the bottom of the bottle.

My kitchen sometimes gets a little overwhelmed with bottles on days like this.

Now I transfer the un-carbonated beer from the secondary fermenter into the bottling bucket to mix with priming sugar. Priming sugar doesn't generate any more alcohol but it does activate the yeast again to produce carbon dioxide which, once trapped in the bottle when capped, will pressurize and carbonate the beer.


I neglected to take any pictures while I was bottling, I was a bit busy filling and capping.
Nonetheless, I have a cabinet full of bottles that will be ready to drink somewhere between one and two weeks!

Preaching to the choir

I couldn't be satisfied with just being obsessed with beer myself, I have to build a following. Not that it was hard to do; Sean was already a beerfan.

So to prod him into the hobby, I brought my kit over to his house last week and brewed a batch of beer with him. ...I managed to do most of the work, but that's not a complaint. I made the beer, he made the stew. I'd call that a fair trade (especially since the beer won't be ready to drink for a few weeks).

To satisfy our thirst for beer, I picked up a few bottles for us to ease our impatience while we transferred our batch from primary to secondary fermentation.

There's BEER a brewin'!

There's BEER a brewin'!

I'm sure it comes as no surprise that I'm a big fan of beer. Making (and enjoying) your own beer at home requires a great deal of patience, but it is immensely gratifying.
This is an American Brown Ale that will finish primary fermentation in ten days, after which it will sit for two more weeks while the remainder of the sediment clears. Then, I'll leave it condition in bottles for another two weeks. I did say that it takes a great deal of patience.