brew dog blog

After searching all over the place for some unpasteurized Apple Cider (in the American sense), I finally found some last week at the Union Square farmer’s market.  Those in search can find it there on Mondays, though I suspect it won’t last much longer into the season, so hurry if you’re trying to get a batch going soon.

Hard Cider is one of the fermented beverages in which more people are going back to traditional methods, relying on yeasts and bacteria present on the skins of the apples to ferment the sugary juice into a dry, delicious alcoholic Cider.  That’s why I searched so long for unpasteurized apple juice — I wanted the microbes and yeasts to be alive, not boiled or “cold” pasteurized out with UV light.  So I let the natural yeasts take over at basement temperatures (mid 60s) for 5 days before sprinkling a little bit of magic dust into the juice – a bit of “house” yeast and some yeast nutrient to help combat sulphur smells.  The ferment took off rapidly after that, kicking out massive amounts of rotten egg sulphur smells for the first couple days, which is calming down.  The juice really cleared up in the beginning, but got churned up again during the heavy ferment.  The blowoff tube is still bubbling, and the OG of 1.050 has come down to 1.028, so things are going smoothly.  I will rack this off into a keg in about a week or so hopefully, and we’ll see how it tastes after that.  The carbonation level is already quite pleasant, so I might not force carbonate it.

As I mentioned before, I also have had the good fortune to put together a small kegging system, which can accomidate three 5 gallon cornelius kegs.  I grabbed a free refrigerator off of Craiglist in good condition, which has enabled me to take a bunch of beer out of our regular refrigerator, and to store my kegs and co2 tank.  I have the Belgian Dark Strong and Belgian Pale ale on tap right now, with simple picnic or “cobra” style taps, and it is a lot of fun.  I force carbonated both batches to high belgian pressure levels, and I’m really pleased with how they’re pouring.  Setting everything up wasn’t too bad, and the convenience of racking into a keg can’t be beat.  I’ll be “counter-pressure” filling some bottles on the cheap, and I’ve collected and cleaned a couple cases worth of Belgian “stubby” bottles that I’ve collected from drinking or from friends and local bars.  I’ll have a lot of gifts to give in return.

I’m almost ready to post some tasting results from my first three beers, the two mentioned above, plus the Rye Saison that was my first batch.  It’s aging…strangely, but I’m enjoying it, and there’s only more good stuff to come.  Thanks for checking out my setup.