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Tuesday, November 20th

Brewblogue: Attempted Cider


Listening to: Herbert - Bodily Functions
Current mood: hungry

Juice:
  • 4 Gallons Treetop Apple Juice
  • 1 Gallon Mrs. Gooch's Natural Apple Juice

Yeast: 1 quart starter of White Labs WLP036 Dusseldorf Alt Yeast

OG: 1.053

So, this was mostly an experiment. I'm not necessarily planning on it turning out great or anything, but I thought it'd be worth trying. A couple meetings ago, one of the guys in QUAFF (by the name of Stan) brought in some really good cider that he had made using some strain of Belgian yeast or other and regular old Treetop apple juice from Costco. I was greatly impressed by it, especially considering its origins. So, seeing as I had a vial of Belgian Wit yeast lying around, and seeing that Treetop goes for about $3 a gallon at Costco (I also decided to fancy it up with a gallon of fancy natural juice from Whole Foods), I thought what the hey. Now, it actually turned out that the Belgian Wit yeast had been lying around a little longer than I thought and was, in fact, stone dead. But I also had a tube of Dusseldort Alt yeast of the same vintage so I went ahead and made a starter out of that (figuring that it might be a goner as well), and lo and behold I now have a happily bubbling carboy of cider which may or may not be any good.

I say may or may not because from what I've heard and read that your standard ale yeast doesn't make the best cider generally speaking, often turning out rather bland. But I'm not too worried, if its not great I'll just back sweeten/applen it with some fresh juice or concentrate or something, and hey it should come out around 7% alcohol, so after the first one who's going to mind? I was thinking of spicing it as well (which is what Stan did), but instead I think I'll leave it plain and mull it if I want the spice.

On another note, I've come to realize that I can probably put together 3 gallon batches of beer at home without having to truck all the way over to Cole's house on the occasions when he happens to be free and in the mood to brew, so I may be upping my brewing frequency in the near future. Hooray beer, indeed.

Matt on 11.20.07 @ 07:41 PM PST [link]  [1 Comment]