The Most Traditional of
American Drinks
Well, I guess we are now Singing Boys Brewing and Cidery.
Nancy is a big sparkling cider fan, having first learned to enjoy it while she was a university student studying in London. After reading about it and hearing a podcast on Basic Brewing Radio http://www.basicbrewing.com/
Apple Cider
featuring Ben Watson, author of Cider, Hard and Sweet: History, Traditions, and Making Your Own http://www.amazon.com/Cider-Hard-Sweet-History-Traditions/dp/0881504688/sr=8-2/qid=1158179637/ref=pd_bbs_2?ie=UTF8&s=books, I decided to try making a handmade batch.
It turned out surprisingly good! It was light and spritzy – it’s not carbonated like beer, cider doesn’t have a ‘head’, just bubbles that float up from the bottom of your glass. The apple flavor came through and the alcohol level was modest. The cider looked attractive in the glass, golden and clear, with a light apple aroma.
This is clearly Nancy’s favorite of our handmade drinks so we will begin making cider on a regular basis. We used organic, non-filtered apple juice (I didn’t press our own apples, maybe in the future), pectin enzyme (to help make the cider clear) and a beer yeast called Nottingham. That’s it.
Making Cider
The process is much easier/faster than beer brewing. Sanitize a glass carboy, airlock and funnel, pour the apple juice into the carboy, add the pectin enzyme and let it sit for a few minutes, then add the dry yeast. Put the airlock on and walk away. I fermented the cider at 65 degrees Fahrenheit. About a week later, I took a sample to test the gravity (to see how much sugar was still left in the cider) and taste test. The reading was 1.010 and the taste was dry but not bone-dry – pretty close to the balance I was looking for. So, we bottled them in beer bottles (I used priming sugar, just as I would beer – not necessary because the yeast were still eating the apple sugars, but I didn’t want to the cider to be drier than it already was). Put the bottles in a warmer place (mid to upper 70s) to bottle condition and carbonate.
After a week, I started opening a bottle every other day, to check on carbonation. When it was right, I then stopped the fermentation/carbonation by pasteurizing on the stove. This involved heating water in a large stock pot to 190 degrees and carefully putting the bottles and letting them sit for about ten minutes. If you don’t stop the fermentation, the yeast will eat all the apple sugars and, likely, you will end up with bottles that explode from the pressure of excessive CO2. Others cider makers use other methods, using chemicals to stop the fermentation, back-sweetening, etc., but our pasteurizing method seemed both simple and more consistent with our commitment to organic brewing.
Try Some Commercial Ciders
If you’ve not tried sparkling hard cider, there are a number of commercial varieties available. Woodchuck http://www.woodchuck.com/woody/age/ is available nationally. Magner’s is an Irish cider http://www.magners.com
And a blogger has worked on a North American Cider Map Project here http://oldtimecider.com/north-american-cider-map-project/ if you want to find a cidery close to you.
Americana
For those attracted to traditional Americana, cider is a great drink. Colonial Americans drank cider because apples were plentiful and abundannt and barley (for beer making) was relatively difficult to cultivate along the eastern seaboard. Many people found it easy to make and enjoy their own cider. The beer that was made was not like european or present day beer, often made with molasses or sorghum. Cider used readily available ingredients, was easier, and tasted better.
