Saturday Brewday

This weekend I decided to try round two of making my own hard cider. The time I made it before it came out delicious and I'm not sure why I've waited this long to try it again! They had a great deal on apple juice at Publix last week so I stocked up. We made a trip down to our friend Brock's Homebrew Store and got a few other necessary ingredients then headed home to brew.

The whole process is pretty simple - sanitizing all the equipment is actually the hardest part! That's only true for cider though; Nate made a red ale at the same time and it was considerably more work. I created my recipe to sort of mimic my new favorite store-bought cider, Angry Orchard Apple Ginger. I'm so excited to see how it turns out!

Kayla's Sweet Honey Ginger Cider

5 gallons Mott's Natural Fresh-Pressed juice

1 pound light brown sugar

1 pound clover honey

Cider yeast

5 gallons of juice!

The juice does not have to be heated to make the cider. I only heated one half gallon in order to dissolve the brown sugar and honey, then I added it to the rest of the juice in the primary fermentation bucket. When heating the juice it's important not to let it boil, as this will set the pectins and result in a hazy cider. Not pretty! 

That's all there is to the first step in making the cider. It's fermenting in our kegerator at 68 degrees for a few weeks. After the primary fermentation stage, I'll add another 1-2 pounds of honey, along with some fresh ginger and some dried orange peel.  Adding the honey at this point will prevent the yeast from turning it into alcohol and preserve that great honey flavor. The fresh ginger is a wild card - it has great potential but it's a little risky, so let's hope it works out.

Our kegerator is painted with chalkboard paint, so I redecorated it for our new brews! Can't wait to try it in a few weeks!