Cider, Apple Cider

The time has come for me to stop talking about committing cider and put my money where my mouth is, or some other more appropriate analogy. The holdup was because I ordered a special sweet Mead/Cider yeast to replace the champagne yeast I bought when I got my first pile of equipment. I was told that the champagne yeast would produce a bone dry beverage and I would rather have a cider with some personality, sweetness, and some body...

Cider, Apple Cider, to be exact. Sorry, I'm still jonsing to see Skyfall.

Apple Cider 'take 1' was achieved thusly:

Ask for a recipe.

Instantly decide to modify recipe with absolutely no cider brewing experience and relying only on the ridiculously good luck that protects idiots and children. I'm 28. Make of that what you will. What seemed like such a bright addition to me beyond brown sugar? It's the holidays, so mulling spices just seemed like a smashing addition.

Apparently mulling spices in Lawton requires the skills of James Bond to obtain. Alas! I am Bondless, but it can't be that hard to get the tasty holiday spice I was going for, so I decided to abandon the quest for commercial mulling spices and appeal to google. For the first time in the history of my personal universe, Google was no help. All the recipes involved exotic stuff like cinnamon sticks and orange peel. Wal-Mart was out of cinnamon sticks and I didn't have any oranges.

Time for plan 3. Do it anyway. Dionysus will protect me.

I already had my five gallons of apple juice. I read the labels of each brand and the only one that didn't have either added grape juice or used chemical yeast and bacteria inhibitors was the dirt cheap, three dollars a gallon off, off, off brand. Dirt cheap off brand apple juice only had apple juice and asorbic acid, which is vitamin C, so the yeast I tossed in should do fine, be happy, and make lots of little yeastlings.

Should. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I dragged a clean bucket and lid upstairs along with an airlock, the giant spoon we bought after the last debacle, and the StarSan in the spray bottle. I shook it and it made bubbles, proving it was still good. Bubbles are very important to the brewing process. <-- Remember that, there will be a test later.

The yeast came in a bag about the size of a regular ziplock sandwich bag called a 'Smack Pack'. Cute. The directions on the back said to hold it in one hand and break the inner bag by... wait for it... smacking it. In theory the bag would inflate over the next three hours as the yeast activated. It felt like breaking a glow stick. I tossed the bag on the counter to come up to room temperature and promptly forgot about it.

Seven hours later:

I walked back into the kitchen and remembered what I'd forgotten. By then it was ten at night and I was just doing my evening cruise through to make sure that there wasn't anything perishable left out. LIKE THE YEAST. LEFT OUT BY ME. Disaster averted. The bag didn't look like it inflated that much, but maybe it had and then the CO2 had bled off. I wasn't supposed to leave it out for seven hours. My bad.

I sprayed the bucket and spoon really well with the Star San and let it sit. Then I got the one pound bag of dark brown sugar, the only part of the original recipe, and added some water to make it into a syrup. I also dumped in about a 1/3 cup honey, 1 tbs cinnamon, 1 ts allspice, 1ts nutmeg, and 1 ts cloves. While that was heating up, I dumped the apple juice into the bucket.

Two minutes later, the spiced sugar mix was simmering. I let it simmer for a couple of minutes just to make sure to kill any bacteria or wild yeast that was on the spice, then poured it into the apple juice. It smelled and tasted divine. I waited a few minutes and stirred it up really well before I sanitized my hands and ripped open the yeast package, and that's when I discovered that I fail at breaking glow sticks.

The inner nutrient packet was still intact, floating in a sea of inert yeast. Balls.

I suppose the slight inflating was only the package coming to room temperature.

On the back it said that I could just pitch it directly if I wanted, so after some sweary words, I did. I figured it was going into pure sugar, the tiny head start given by being able to follow the directions and break a simple plastic bubble probably weren't going to matter that much over the long run.

Unless I'd managed to kill the yeast by letting it sit out four hours longer that it was supposed to.

I didn't know what to do, so I fell back on the old standby of charge blindly ahead and let things work themselves out. As a life philosophy, it's worked for me so far.

A quick spritz of Star San on the lid and the bucket was sealed. I secured the airlock without mishap and left it to ferment. Early the next morning I checked the airlock. No bubbles. The bubbles coming up in the airlock would be a sign that the yeast was doing its thing and producing alcohol. But it had only been overnight. Maybe it needed longer?

I checked it that evening.

No.

Bubbles.

Now I started to freak out again. Maybe it had been too hot when I pitched the yeast. Maybe all the yeast was dead! I hadn't bothered to use a thermometer. I dug the yeast package out of the trash and read it again. 24-48 hours before activity would be obvious. Maybe I just needed to give it a little more time. I checked it again.

The next morning:

This calls for drastic measures. I sanitized my hands and gently pried up the lid for a peek inside.

IT WAS DISGUSTING! Which meant it was fermenting! There was scummy layer on the top and the faintest trace of alcohol was very evident when I cracked the lid. I hadn't killed it! I pressed the lid back down and when I did:

I get bubbles in the airlock when I press the lid down. I suppose there isn't enough pressure in there to force the bubbles up through the airlock, or maybe it wasn't sealed all the way and the CO2 was oozing out the side, but it's bubbling right now.

Now, if it only tastes as good as it smells...

The .gifs were used with permission from http://justburntsomepopcorn.tumblr.com/ and y'know, Pixar. Pixar not so much with permission.