I have long felt that the French have pulled off one of the greatest propaganda campaigns in history by successfully promoting the idea that only grapes are capable of creating a truly delicious alcoholic beverage.
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Hard cider is a trouble drink for me. I love it so much I would drink it by the hogshead if I could, but the hangover is like champagne. Trouble.
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I think I may be the same- I actually havenāt consumed much cider although it interests me- craft brewed ale is my staple. I drank some very tasty cider from Eveās a week ago and got a head ache, but this was after already drinking my usual dose of a single 12oz bottle of ale so Iām not sure if it was the double dose. Iām a cheap, low dose high. Next time I will try the cider alone and see how that works as I have no problem with champagne.
Iāve always been a cider drinker ever since i first tried a couple bottles as an Aggie at UBC (University of British Columbia) in 1986. I much prefer hard cider to any beer or wine. However I donāt drink much alcohol period cause usually at parties and restaurants Iām the designated driver of my kids. But yeah, I love cider and would drink a 2 liter (.5 gallon) bottle a day if I could.
Anthony
Iām within a few days of starting both pears and apples. With the āTim Allenā crusher and my homemade press.
It seems the pears are hard to decide when to press. They go from hard to spoiled pretty quickly,
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Cleanup after pressing the pears. I got almost 3 gallon of juice. I went ahead and topped it up to three so I could use my 3gal carboy. Ran the SG up to 1.100. Sulfites tonight and pitch the yeast tomorrow.
EDIT: I forgot to say for those interested. I had pears from two different trees. The brix was 12 on one and 14.5 on the other.
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I got the apples pressed today. I made 4.5 gallons of juice. I have 3 gallons to ferment and 1.5 gallons for the family to drink.
So I have 3gal of pear and 3gal of apples in the primary buckets.
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Iāll spare you the play-by-play from now on but here is what the pear looks like today. Iāll post again on bottling day.
SG was near 1.000 I didnāt look closely,didnāt matter. Iāll put the apple in the jug this weekend and Iāll have two going. itās bubbling nicely. I have a tendency to bottle too soon. If anyone has an opinion on how long to let it sit in this jug Iād be ok with that. Otherwise Iāll see ya in a few months.
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I only got a handful of fruit but theyāre very tired and very astringent, Iām going to make 1 gallon of cider with cornelian cherries I swiped from the University in store apple juice-- at some point I will have actual cider apples to juice but for now Iāve been doing a lot of experimenting by mixing other things in to dress commercial apple juice. The carnelian cherries unripe seem to be like crab apples on steroids
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I am thinking of making cider/fruit wine with peach, has anyone tried that? I have so many peaches this year, I have frozen a lot of them, would like to make fruit wine from it.
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I donāt knowā¦ Iāve a big fan of Brulosophyās ex-beer-iments. Here is his (their?) take whether you need to do extended maturation of a beer in secondary. Iām not sure if it applies to cider or not.
The old wisdom is that as the original gravity gets heavier the yeast need time to remove some of the garbage they produce during the ferment. It would be nice if we knew this for cider.
If you take Claude Jolicoeurās word as the authority, anything less than 6 months in secondary is too short. But the traditional cider makers do all sorts of stuff to ensure the slowest possible ferment they can get.
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Trying peach wine for the first time this year. Used a basic recipe with 4# of sugar and 15# or peaches with 5 gallons of water, Made 2 batches using different yeast. I did not check the starting SG or the PH and just moved quickly through the process. Hope it works because I often have a lot of second grade peaches I donāt sell. If I lived in a part of the country where home distilling was legal, I would turn the peach wine into peach brandy. Itās my understanding that a wine that taste lousy will distill into a good brandy, but I have never tried it.
Sounds interesting! Let us know how they turn out. You actually put in a lot of water! I didnāt think of that, I was thinking of just using pure peach juice.
What kind of yeast did you use? I used beer yeast for Apple cider before, I probably will use that again. Just want to make some fruity drinkš
Peach brandy sounds interesting, too bad you canāt do itš
I made peach wine once. It tasted like peaches! Problem is I donāt like peaches. The body was pretty thin, and it never did clarify, but that might have been user error. I think I used a Jack Keller recipe.
I like peach, so taste like peach would work for me!
thanks for your input!