brewing 2ne1

Super Cider

2 November 2010 - I had two gallons of freshly pressed pure apple juice for making a batch of cider after an apple pressing evening with a friend. For the past few years, I help him process a huge crop of apples into juice with a great old fashioned grinder and press that he’s had for decades, and I take home a portion of the juice. This year I took home four gallons, and we drank two as fresh wonderful juice, and I fermented the other two. 

I read in an old brewing book about how some country folk made cider from pressed apple juice as normal, but added sugar or honey, whatever was available cheaply, to produce a stronger cider which might have been nearly wine. When they drank a few pints of this cider, they would understandably have difficulty walking. This is what I wanted to try this year. 

The starting gravity of the pure juice was 1.05, so I added 1 kg of sugar in a primary fermenting bucket to bring it up to 1.08 which would hopefully produce a med/dry apple wine with about 12 or 13% alcohol. I added pectolase, acid blend, tannin, bentonite, and winemaking yeast. It was racked to two glass demijohns after a couple weeks and allowed to sit. 

Update 20 Aug 2011- I finally decided to bottle this batch, which had no attention whatsoever during the past several months. It tastes fine, medium dry (not dry) with a pleasing golden colour. I bottled all of it in 2 L plastic soda bottles since I’m low on proper wine bottles. I have one chilled in the fridge, it’s nice served cold at dinner time.

Anyone up for a tasting?

Cheers, Jason