gunhaus
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- Mar 8, 2006
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A couple of weeks ago my son asked me to make up some cider - By that he meant a recipe we use that starts out around 1.130 - 1.140 and that we dry out as far as we can with EC-1118, rack onto Campden and Sorbate, and back sweeten with several fruits concentrates until is makes him and his fiance happy! (Dad leans a little more to the dry pub style!)
Well the recipe is really just Mott's and plain table sugar enough to hit the OG. BUT every now and then circumstances will conspire to force you to adapt or adjust to conditions/environment and make little tweaks to a procedure. In this case, the circumstance was that i did not tip my head back far enough to allow the bottom half of my glasses do their job correctly. THUS the large spare bag of white sugar in my pantry turned out to be a bag of flour. So instead of all white sugar I ended up having to use brown sugar to bring the numbers up to snuff.
'Now I have used brown sugar in the past a couple times and the end product was not my oyster. But this time the balance appears to have reached a point i find very appealing!
The recipe is basic stuff - since i like simple is better. 5 Gallons of Motts AJ, 4 lbs of white sugar and 2.5 pounds of dark brown sugar which gave me 1.131. Pitched the EC1118 covered and ignored as much as possible for the last two weeks. Today since i had the toys out for another project I thought i would check it. Still getting slow bubbles one a minute or so. Gravity was right on 1.040 (Shade under 12% abv if my math is right) But holy-moly does it ever taste good! It is a tad sweeter than I usually like, but it has a slight tart finish and a nice mouth feel. There is a slight hotness too it but heck, it is two weeks old and still perking a bit. Anyway it got my wheels turning. I am awful tempted to take this to 1.030 and rack it onto the campden and sorbate, cold crash it in a keg, and hammer away! I gotta think a month in the keg, and a few appropriately placed bubbles and this stuff could be a real barn burner! Even with the slight bite to it from still being so young this would be quite dangerous stuff. I am thinking mellowed with some age and lightened with with some fizz this could be serious fun. Me thinks the kid may have to start a NEW batch of cider.
Well the recipe is really just Mott's and plain table sugar enough to hit the OG. BUT every now and then circumstances will conspire to force you to adapt or adjust to conditions/environment and make little tweaks to a procedure. In this case, the circumstance was that i did not tip my head back far enough to allow the bottom half of my glasses do their job correctly. THUS the large spare bag of white sugar in my pantry turned out to be a bag of flour. So instead of all white sugar I ended up having to use brown sugar to bring the numbers up to snuff.
'Now I have used brown sugar in the past a couple times and the end product was not my oyster. But this time the balance appears to have reached a point i find very appealing!
The recipe is basic stuff - since i like simple is better. 5 Gallons of Motts AJ, 4 lbs of white sugar and 2.5 pounds of dark brown sugar which gave me 1.131. Pitched the EC1118 covered and ignored as much as possible for the last two weeks. Today since i had the toys out for another project I thought i would check it. Still getting slow bubbles one a minute or so. Gravity was right on 1.040 (Shade under 12% abv if my math is right) But holy-moly does it ever taste good! It is a tad sweeter than I usually like, but it has a slight tart finish and a nice mouth feel. There is a slight hotness too it but heck, it is two weeks old and still perking a bit. Anyway it got my wheels turning. I am awful tempted to take this to 1.030 and rack it onto the campden and sorbate, cold crash it in a keg, and hammer away! I gotta think a month in the keg, and a few appropriately placed bubbles and this stuff could be a real barn burner! Even with the slight bite to it from still being so young this would be quite dangerous stuff. I am thinking mellowed with some age and lightened with with some fizz this could be serious fun. Me thinks the kid may have to start a NEW batch of cider.
