theholtsite

I’ve been reading about homebrewing for a couple weeks now. My friends Jeff, Nick, and Andy are way more experienced than me and have all produced delicious beer or cider on their own. I’ve benefited personally.

So I decided to try out hard cider on my own. I like beer, but cider seemed more local, natural, and historic to me. In the early days of our country, hops and barley weren’t easy to get but apples grew all over the place, meaning cider was the drink of choice.

Brewing seems to be something you can do casually or spend years scientifically perfecting. For cider, the recipes range from “leave a jug of apple juice alone for a few months” to complex and experimental. Some variables include:

– The kind of cider you use (makes a huge difference)
– The use of chemicals like pectic acid, Campden tablets, yeast nutrient, etc.
– Supplementing with sugars, honey, fruit, etc.
– Length of time of fermentation
– The type of yeast (also a big factor)
– Adding sweeteners after the fermenting process
– Method of stopping fermentation – cold crashing, racking, pasteurization, or a combination?
– Bottling with sugar to add extra carbonization

There’s others too, it’s quite a science even just for cider. Since it’s my first time, I read a lot and decided to go semi-pro. I used four separate gallons of cider so if I messed up one it wouldn’t mess up my whole batch. I used Nottingham Ale yeast, some pectic acid, and pre-treated with one Campden tablet per gallon. My friend Nick brought me all of that from the store plus some rubber stoppers and valve thingys, some sanitizer, and a hydrometer.

Much of this stuff is above my head yet, but the beauty of brewing seems to be that even an absolute amateur can end up with a delicious result if you follow a recipe. Maybe I’ll experiment if this batch comes out great.