thelema5
Well-Known Member
My cider making hobby started out innocently enough, with a gallon jug and an airlock. As you know we tend to accumulate more and more equipment over time, and I recently realized that my den was being taken over by carboys, ciders in various stages of aging, scales, funnels, buckets, corkers, you name it.
So I decided to wrap up my various projects, bottled what I had on deck, and bit the bullet to move my hobby to it's proper place- the cellar.
I mean, I'm not using it for anything... and it stays cool enough down there in the summer to allow for year-round fermenting! It was the perfect solution except...
My cellar... was a place of ill-repute. Dank, musty, filthy. It was filthy when we bought the house 13 years ago, and we could never steel our nerves enough to deal with it. I mean, we practically never go down there unless a breaker needs to be reset, anyway. For years, my cellar was feared by all, regarded with superstition like a moldering dungeon housing untold hoards of mutant spiders.
In the name of cider, I decided to tackle the beast. Over the course of two weekends I removed several cubic yards of trash and debris; swept, dusted, mopped, and disinfected the whole space. Killed a race of mutant spiders. Dusted, mopped and sanitized again. Until...
Here's my new cider cellar, before and after:
It's not much, but it beats fighting for space upstairs with all the usual family creature comforts and household furnishings. It's nice to be able to stretch out.
This got me thinking, though- where do you folks do your fermenting?
So I decided to wrap up my various projects, bottled what I had on deck, and bit the bullet to move my hobby to it's proper place- the cellar.
I mean, I'm not using it for anything... and it stays cool enough down there in the summer to allow for year-round fermenting! It was the perfect solution except...
My cellar... was a place of ill-repute. Dank, musty, filthy. It was filthy when we bought the house 13 years ago, and we could never steel our nerves enough to deal with it. I mean, we practically never go down there unless a breaker needs to be reset, anyway. For years, my cellar was feared by all, regarded with superstition like a moldering dungeon housing untold hoards of mutant spiders.
In the name of cider, I decided to tackle the beast. Over the course of two weekends I removed several cubic yards of trash and debris; swept, dusted, mopped, and disinfected the whole space. Killed a race of mutant spiders. Dusted, mopped and sanitized again. Until...
Here's my new cider cellar, before and after:
It's not much, but it beats fighting for space upstairs with all the usual family creature comforts and household furnishings. It's nice to be able to stretch out.
This got me thinking, though- where do you folks do your fermenting?