Drink Matron

Tag: apple cider

  • Apple Jack: The failed experiment

    apple ciderFor those of you who were on the edge of your seats (yeah right) waiting to find out how the Apple Jack experiment is going, I’m here to tell you, it’s over.

    “What? But your experiment was so fool proof!” you might say. You bet.

    Well, in the end, we let the apple cider sit too long before freezing it, and it turned into vinegar. The jars also leak a little bit, causing our freezer to currently smell exactly the way you would imagine apple vinegar would smell.

    So, that was two years of time spent that ended badly, again. Haha. I think it might be safe to say that Adrian and I aren’t necessarily cut out for making liquor, although I suppose it won’t be the last time we experiment with this kind of thing. For now, we’ll stick to beer and wine. Our track record is quite good there.

     

  • Apple Jack Update

    It’s been a long time since we talked about our Apple jack experiment, so I thought I would toss up an update.

    Over the last year and a half, we’ve made, from scratch, our own apple cider. It sat for quite a long time waiting for us to complete the recipe, and about two weeks ago, it was finally done. Adrian then re-racked it and let it sit until the rest of the resin from the apples and yeast had settled to the bottom. Yesterday, he started the process of turning it into Apple jack.

    We are utilizing the traditional method of freeze distillation. Freeze distillation is a process of concentrating the alcohol in a fermented beverage by freezing it, then removing the frozen material. Because water freezes before the alcohol, the more the beverage is frozen, the more water is removed, leaving a higher concentration of alcohol when the freezing process is complete. In other words, we’re going to freeze the liquid and pour off whatever liquid is left over, and repeat the process until we reach our desired alcohol content.

    We will keep you abreast of the process and its ups and downs. Hopefully it will all work out exactly the way we hope, although when it comes to our crafting experiments, nothing every really does.

  • Drinkmatron Labs: Hard Cider

    When it comes to homebrewing, the absolute easiest thing you can make is hard cider.  In this day and age where apple cider is readily available from apple orchards all over (or from a grocery store if you have to), you can get a batch fermenting in 5 minutes.  A lot of apple orchards sell freshly pressed apple cider without any preservatives added and ideally this is the cider you want to use.

    The preservatives added to juice is called potassium sorbate, and its only job in the world is to prevent yeast from reproducing.  Just in case any wild yeast makes its way into your cider, it won’t ferment so quickly and the cider will “last” longer.  It can’t stop the yeast from fermenting the sugars in the cider, it just stops them from being able to multiply.

    So you want to avoid cider with preservatives.  If you don’t live anywhere near an orchard that sells preservative-free cider, fear not, because you can still make it work.  You just need more yeast. The orchard I went to only sold cider with preservatives so I had to go this route.

    To make cider, you need:

    * Cider
    * Yeast (any brewing yeast, you can find it at your local home brew store or most Co-Ops)

    Put the cider in some kind of container that you can ferment it in.  The jug it came in will work fine as long as you can put together some sort of airlock system in it to prevent contaminants from getting in and the bottle from getting pressurized.  Add the yeast to the cider.  Wait for several months.  If you want it carbonated, mix a little table sugar in with the cider and place in pressurized bottles (like old pop bottles).

    If you’re like me and are using cider with potassium sorbate, you need more than just a packet of yeast.  Since it won’t multiply, you need to start with all the yeast possible.  I used three packets of champagne yeast.  On top of that, I made a yeast starter using some briess dry malt extract and yeast nutrient to get the yeast amped up and ready to ferment my cider.

    Now it’s just a waiting game for some tasty, tasty hard cider.

    ** Note: In Co-Op’s and grocery stores you will find a product called “Brewer’s Yeast.”  This is not what you want to use, this is dead yeast that won’t activate or ferment.