Gold Rush Hard Cider

You know what's easier to make than beer? Hard cider! The beer-related posts below have so many steps and ingredients, which is pretty awesome I have to say, but for a cramped schedule cider is just the trick.

My wife Beth, who is a genius, decided that we needed to brew together and wanted to make apple cider. That was brilliant, I thought, so I started researching. I knew my favorite apple cider of all time was the Gold Rush cider from North Star Orchard, and it just so happened that I could mass-order the stuff and that it doesn't contain preservatives! I ordered 7 gallons - two for drinking/mulling, and five for fermenting. We picked it up at Clark Park less than 10 days ago. (The non-fermented cider is already gone...)

The next day I went to Home Sweet Homebrew, my local brew store of choice. I walked around a bit, forgetting where everything was since I hadn't brewed in months. After picking up a packed of the wrong wine yeast, someone asked if I was making cider (obviously not making wine at this time of year, I guess). I said I was, and started talking about "the best cider I've ever had". Nancy overheard me and asked which one. When I told her she got very excited and exclaimed that she was making the same stuff! Apparently she's made it for a few years, and has experimented with different sugars, and with bottling and kegging, with great success. She was also generous enough to give me her recipe, and helped me pick out all the ingredients. Here it is:

5 gallons Gold Rush cider
5 campden tablets
2 packets of D47 dry yeast
1 packet of yeast nutrients
5 lbs of sugar (turbinado, demerara, glucose, etc.) - I chose turbinado
1 packet of acid blend (citric, malic, and tartaric)

Crush a campden tablet into each cider jug, and refrigerate for 24 hours. Sanitize a 5-gallon carboy, and dump in the sugar, yeast, nutrients, and cider. Stir it, airlock it, and let it go!

Ours didn't start bubbling for a few days, but I think our house was too cold (60F), and after I turned the heat up to 65F the yeast got busy and now it's going nuts. The D47 is non-foaming, so an airlock in a 5-gallon carboy was completely sufficient.

I haven't figured out bottling or racking yet, but will update this when that is all done.

Later Fermentation Pics

From 01/28 - pale ale carboy with blowoff tube. This worked really well, and I'd do it again.

From 02/07 - the pale ale after racking and dry hopping.

From 02/20 - Belgian bottling time!

Everything needed very careful sanitizing, which took the most time of any step.

Ben is doing something really cool here, but I'm not sure what. At least Andrew and Alan are amused!

Bottling success! Chris was a very proud brewer that day.

The next day we bottled the pale ale. Everything must be clean!

Clean I tell you!

We felt quite victorious after coming this far.


Contemplation of the trub (or what's left of it).



03/07 - tasting time! How pretty is that?!?


Awwwwww yeaaaaaaaah...


Brewing is a community-building event, and don't forget it!

It was so delicious, I got this stupid grin on my face.

Legend of the Brew Day

Getting set up! Check out that 7.5 gallon stainless steel pot in all its majesty...

Measuring grains with my so-called "drug scale". I got so much crap for this thing. It's for baking for goodness sakes!

Steeping our specialty grains.

Lighting the spectacularly huge propane burner.

Checking grain steepage with my precision gadgetry. Temp a little low perhaps, but ok.

Boil time!

Gigantic pot full of water + Humongous propane burner = fast boil even in cold weather!

Pretty day...

Steeping is done.

Adding the dry malt extract (DME). It sticks madly to the bag because of the steam.

Ice bath in an actual ice bath.

Great cold break!

Pouring into the plastic carboy.

Lounging about between batches.

Drinking beer while making beer -- some sort of beery vortex! Two great local beers here.

During boil #2 we were sick of being cold...

Boiling 8-dollar Belgian candy sugar with water. What a racket!

Waiting for the wort to chill.

My favorite picture of the day - pouring the wort into the carboy.

The patented Ben Aeration method.

Pitching the yeast in place.

ABC American Pale Ale Fermentation notes

01/23 - ~1PM - pitched yeast, filled airlock with bourbon
01/23 - 7PM - 65F
01/24 - 11AM - very small white matter forming on top
01/24 - 3:30PM - lots of foam, 1-2 bubbles/second - 66F

at ~26 hours

01/24 - 10:20PM - 1" foam, 1-2 bubbles/second, applied foil to keep warm/keep out sun - 68F

at ~33 hours

01/25 - 7:00AM - ~2" foam, bubbling a bit more now - 66F

at ~42 hours

01/25 - 4:10PM - foam filling carboy, coming out of airlock, constant bubbling, refilled airlock
with bourbon - 65F

at ~51 hours

01/25 - 7:00PM - airlock foamed out again, carefully moved the carboy into the basement sink
01/25 - 10:15PM - sanitized (with Straight-A premium cleanser) a new plug, a pen cap (thanks to Ben Smith), a tube, and a bucket to create a blow-off mechanism; carboy was without proper airlock for perhaps 8 hours, hoping that the carbon dioxide/liquid/bubbles were enough to keep the outside world out

123 Belgian Ale - Fermentation at 48 hrs. (top) & 24 hrs. (bottom)

123 Belgian Strong Ale (Brew Date 1/23/10)

Brew Date: 1/23/10

123 Belgian Strong Ale

Brewing

Specialty Grains

0.25 lbs. Special B 110-150º L (German/Weyerman Cara Aroma)

0.5 lbs. Caramunich 50-60º L (German/Weyerman CaraMunich III)

1 lb. Pale 2-row 1.5º L

Steeped 30 minutes in approx. 1 gallon of distilled water starting at 162º F.  Washed with an additional 0.75 gallons after steeping.  Transferred to large pot and added water to bring total volume up to 3 gallons.

Extract

1 lb. Muntons Extra Light DME

6.6 lbs. Coopers Light LME

Before the boil, only the DME and 2 lbs. of LME added.  The rest of the LME was added @ 15 min.

Hops

0.67 oz. Goldings (7.0%) @ 60 min. (pellets)

1 oz. Saaz @ 1 min. (leaf hops in hop bag).

Hop bag remained in the wort during the chilling and was removed with sanitized tongs before transferring to the fermenter.

Extras

1 lb. Dark Belgian Candy Sugar Syrup @ 15 min. [80 srm/ 1.032 ppg]. (Mixed with 1 pint of water and brought to low boil in saucepan before adding to the wort).  Took about 17 minutes to prepare.

The addition of the extract and candy syrup @ 15 minutes cooled the wort significantly - took about 6 minutes after adding to bring the wort back to full boil.  To compensate, we added 3 minutes to the total boil time.

Chilling

The wort was chilled in an ice bath for approx. 20 minutes.  The ice bath did partially drain during the cooling, and we didn’t notice it soon enough.  We refilled the bath and cooled the wort for an additional 10 minutes or so before transferring to the carboy.  The cold break was not especially noticeable.

Fermenting

Yeast

WYEAST Belgian Strong 1388

Wort was transferred into clear glass carboy with one small spill - a minor splash (total volume loss was less than 1/2 cup).  Fully strained in the transfer.  Before fermenting, wort was dark brown in color.

The yeast was not fully activated when pitched.  The nutrient pack in the yeast package did not break open when we tried to activate the yeast.  Sanitizer solution used in the airlock.  Wort was 66-68º F when yeast was pitched.

ABC American Pale Ale (Brew Date 1/23/10)

Brew Date: 1/23/10

ABC American Pale Ale

Brewing

Specialty Grains

8 oz. US Caramel Crystal 40º L

8 oz. US Carapils (dextrine) 1.5º L

Steeped 30 minutes in approx. 0.8 gallons of distilled water starting at 160º F.

Extract

1 lb. Muntons Extra Light DME

8 lb. Mount Mellick Light LME

All extract added to the wort before the boil.

Hops

1 oz. Nugget (13%) @ 60 min.

0.5 oz. Perle (8.3%) @ 15 min.

1 oz. Cascade (7.3%) @ 1 min.

Extras

1 tsp. Irish Moss @ 15 min. 

Chilling

The wort was chilled in an ice bath for approx. 30 minutes.  Nice cold break.

Fermenting

Yeast

WYEAST American Pale Ale

Wort was transferred into clear plastic carboy with no spillage.  Only partially strained in the transfer.  Before fermenting, wort was light-medium brown in color.  The carboy was transported to Ben’s house before the yeast was pitched.

The yeast was not fully activated when pitched.  Bourbon used in the airlock.