The Brewers' Guild

[DreamHazard]

I know, but unfortunately, I'm currently living with my parents and doing it in the kitchen over an electric hob, if it was gas I'd be more than happy to give it a go.

Might be worth seeing if you can glom a camping stove off someone if you want to use gas

[Rev. Jade]

Hello chaps!
I have a couple of questions for you, and I hope that you all can help me out.

First off, I'd like to improve my hard cider recipe, and I'm thinking about adding a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg for a kind of "fall" feel; I know it is a bit early for fall beverages, but I'm getting rather bored of my straight cider.
Does anybody else have any suggestions for additions to give a hard cider a bit more character?
Currently my only ingredients are cider, yeast, brown sugar, and frozen apple juice concentrate.
It is rather tasty, but after 4 5-gallon batches of the stuff I'm ready for something a bit different.

Second, I was wondering if anybody has tried making hard lemonade via fermentation.
It is rather hot here in southern New Mexico, and I can think of nothing more refreshing at the end of the day than a cold glass of fresh lemonade.
Add alcohol to that, and you have a happy desert dweller!
I would like to be able to avoid just adding vodka to lemonade, however, and I would love to be able to make use of my kegerator.

If anybody has any experience or suggestions in these matters, I would be very appreciative if you would share them!

(EDIT) I've found this interesting recipe for a hard lemonade, but I wonder how it would turn out with no dried malt extract...

[George Salt]

It depends what you want from your cider.  I like quite a clean cider closer to the French style than the West country, so my TC recipe is very simple..

Gallon of apple juice (cheapest available supermarket own brand from concentrate)
1 teaspoon tannin powder
1 teaspoon citric acid
5g Young's cider yeast

If you want West Country you could add malic acid rather than citric, but you'll need to culture your yeast from a commercial bottle to get the malolactic fermentation bugs.  I believe Weston's "Old Rosie" is the culture of choice.

I don't add sugar as it dilutes the apple and only adds strength.  Juice apples lack the acid and tannin of cider apples, which is why I add those.

For fruit ciders I add a bottle of Lowicz fruit syrup (raspberry and cherry are nice, blackcurrant is fantastic) and make up to the gallon with apple juice (otherwise recipe as above).  This does add quite a bit of sugar, so the end result is a strong cider that when fermented dry has a habit of creeping up on you.  Dry drinks never taste quite as strong as they are.

Come autumn though, we get the press out and it's pure apple juice cider from whatever apples we can scrounge from friends and neighbours.  I have done this version using wild yeasts and using Young's yeast.


Your post has reminded me.. I have 20l of apple juice in cartons sat next to the fermenter.  I must get a batch on soon.

[von Corax]

[snip]
First off, I'd like to improve my hard cider recipe, and I'm thinking about adding a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg for a kind of "fall" feel; I know it is a bit early for fall beverages, but I'm getting rather bored of my straight cider.
Does anybody else have any suggestions for additions to give a hard cider a bit more character?
Currently my only ingredients are cider, yeast, brown sugar, and frozen apple juice concentrate.
It is rather tasty, but after 4 5-gallon batches of the stuff I'm ready for something a bit different.

Brown sugar contains a hefty dollop of molasses (depending how dark it is) which will show up in the flavour, making your cider taste less apple-y. I would think apple juice should contain enough fermentable sugars on its own.

Your use of concentrated juice will likely also have an effect. Were I you, I would look for not-from-concentrate juice, or (even better) fresh unpasteurized juice (in season, if you can find it.) I would also make at least one batch with nothing but juice (no sugar or spices) to get a flavour baseline from which to work.

For completeness' sake I might even do this with several different brands or blends of juice to learn the differences in resulting flavour.

[Wormster]

MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I glommed a 40 liter Mango Chutney barrel from the back of the local Indian takeaway t'other day!! - there's a shop (www.ballyhoo.co.uk) just down the road from me that do lots of differing kits, so I'm going to wander down next week and peruse their range to find a suitable beer kit candidate, I'll have to pop to T'owd man's at somepoint and pick up my hydrometer at some point!

I've had reasonable success with beer kits before, even tried kit form Peach Schnapps and Gin with reasonable results, and, last year had a go at Marrow Rum, that was reasonable but in hindsight I wish I'd let it mature for longer!!

[Rev. Jade]

[snip]
First off, I'd like to improve my hard cider recipe, and I'm thinking about adding a bit of cinnamon and nutmeg for a kind of "fall" feel; I know it is a bit early for fall beverages, but I'm getting rather bored of my straight cider.
Does anybody else have any suggestions for additions to give a hard cider a bit more character?
Currently my only ingredients are cider, yeast, brown sugar, and frozen apple juice concentrate.
It is rather tasty, but after 4 5-gallon batches of the stuff I'm ready for something a bit different.

Brown sugar contains a hefty dollop of molasses (depending how dark it is) which will show up in the flavour, making your cider taste less apple-y. I would think apple juice should contain enough fermentable sugars on its own.

Your use of concentrated juice will likely also have an effect. Were I you, I would look for not-from-concentrate juice, or (even better) fresh unpasteurized juice (in season, if you can find it.) I would also make at least one batch with nothing but juice (no sugar or spices) to get a flavour baseline from which to work.

For completeness' sake I might even do this with several different brands or blends of juice to learn the differences in resulting flavour.

I do use fresh juice (and non-pasteurized when I can find it); I just add a couple of cans of concentrate to up the fermentables.
This is the same reason I use the brown sugar, as I find that I like my cider rather on the strong side 
I have also done a couple of batches using just juice, and they turned out rather well, but I prefer my method for strong cider.
Don't get me wrong, I am very pleased with my recipe, but I would just like to change it up a bit for the next batch.
I think I will try just spicing it with a dash of cinnamon, but I think I might hold off on the nutmeg.

MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!

I glommed a 40 liter Mango Chutney barrel from the back of the local Indian takeaway t'other day!! - there's a shop (www.ballyhoo.co.uk) just down the road from me that do lots of differing kits, so I'm going to wander down next week and peruse their range to find a suitable beer kit candidate, I'll have to pop to T'owd man's at somepoint and pick up my hydrometer at some point!

I've had reasonable success with beer kits before, even tried kit form Peach Schnapps and Gin with reasonable results, and, last year had a go at Marrow Rum, that was reasonable but in hindsight I wish I'd let it mature for longer!!

That is quite the barrel you've laid hands on!
I think you may have linked to a wrong website though, as that one goes to a graphic design company.

[Wormster]

Amazing the difference one letter makes:

http://www.balliihoo.co.uk/

My apologies.

As to the barrel, well if one doesn't seek one will not find!

[Rev. Jade]

Amazing the difference one letter makes:

http://www.balliihoo.co.uk/

My apologies.

As to the barrel, well if one doesn't seek one will not find!

No worries!
Are you doing full extract, partial extract, or all grain brewing?

[Wormster]

Probably a full extract kit. I've had reasonable results with this in the past.

[Wormster]

MUHAHAHA!!

let the alchemy begin, I now have a Coopers Australian Stout kit, 1 kilo of Mr Tate and Mr Lyle's finest unrefined demerara sugar and a sterile barrel.

I'm going to have to modify the inner "pop off" seal of the barrel to accept a bubble lock before commencing the process!

I will report back in a while with results!

[Wormster]

Heh heh, fermentation began overnight.

I had to move the barrel into the airing cupboard, its going to stay there until fermentation is complete (hopefully by the weekend), then I'll have to siphon off the beer and transfer it into bottles and leave for a week or so.

I was a bit worried that the ferment wouldn't take, as all I did was to sprinkle the dried yeast sachet over the liquor, in the past I've started the yeast off with a little warm water and some sugar, but time passed and it has taken!

[Rev. Jade]

That's how I usually pitch my yeast as well.
I haven't really noticed any difference in doing it that way rather than with a starter, other than sometimes it takes a few hours longer to start fermentation.
What is an Australian Stout, by the by?

[Madasasteamfish]

That's how I usually pitch my yeast as well.
I haven't really noticed any difference in doing it that way rather than with a starter, other than sometimes it takes a few hours longer to start fermentation.

I do a mixture of both, depending on time, the yeast I'm using and the brew (as well as how lazy I'm feeling). Generally the only difference between the two is whether or not you're waiting for the yeast to rehyrdate and wake up. As a general rule I tend to use a starter if I'm using a brewer's yeast as it helps stop the yeast getting too excited in the brew and bubbling up into the airlock. But I don't tend to use a starter with baking yeast.

[Wormster]

Here's the aforementioned kit:

http://www.balliihoo.co.uk/coopers-stout-p-142.html

[Wormster]

HEH HEH HEH!!

25L of DANGERBRAU! now stored away behind the sofa carbonating like mad!

(if the results of the "washup" are owt to go by this will be a goodun!!)

I need to invest in a longer syphon hose and another kit now, the only problem is that I've filled all my PET cider (3x 3L and 7x 2L) bottles.

EHRMAGERD, I'M GUNNA NEED TO EMPTY MOARBOATTLES!

[Mercury Wells]

Thinking of "trying" to make Melon Ale.

Has anyone tried it, if so would you recommend "Honeydew" or "water melon"? I was thinking of using "Honeydew".

[George Salt]

Whatever you can get cheap.. but honeydew and watermelon both pack an awfully high water content for a very low flavour content.

[Wormster]

Bung it inabuket and let it go, can't hurt now can it?

[Professor Phineas Brownsm]

Bung it inabuket and let it go, can't hurt now can it?

;

only one way to find out....*muffled explosion from the kitchen*

[Rev. Jade]

So, does anyone have anything on the go at the moment?
I finally got around to making another batch of hard cider, but I rushed the kegging and it hasn't clarified as much as I normally like.
It's still bloody well alcoholic, though!
A pint is enough to give me a bit of a fuzzy feeling at the tip of my nose.
I'm planning to start a batch of hard lemonade tomorrow, but we'll see if the fates have other plans in mind!

[Madasasteamfish]

Not a lot. Did a fairly unsuccessful partial grain mash but it's drinkable. I made some strawberry wine over the summer whcih is sat in the airing cupboard waiting for warmer weather to be bottled, and I made some cherry wine which wasn't too bad. I've also got another batch of tea wine on the go.

Plans for the future are: another batch of rice and raisin in the next few weeks. As well bottling my mead in time for christmas (along with another spiced beer).

[Mercury Wells]

Just finished brewing a kit beer (John Bull). The main batch is flat, but drinkable. 
Put the last gal. into a plastic demi john  added a few "Earl Grey" tea bags + extra sugar for secondary fermentation stage.

Spoiler: ShowHide

the demi-john is bulging ever-so slightly, so its now been placed in the bucket for safety, with the lid on.

Will let you all know how it tastes. 

[Rev. Jade]

Not a lot. Did a fairly unsuccessful partial grain mash but it's drinkable. I made some strawberry wine over the summer whcih is sat in the airing cupboard waiting for warmer weather to be bottled, and I made some cherry wine which wasn't too bad. I've also got another batch of tea wine on the go.

Plans for the future are: another batch of rice and raisin in the next few weeks. As well bottling my mead in time for christmas (along with another spiced beer).

Strawberry wine sounds delicious!

Just finished brewing a kit beer (John Bull). The main batch is flat, but drinkable. 
Put the last gal. into a plastic demi john  added a few "Earl Grey" tea bags + extra sugar for secondary fermentation stage.

Spoiler: ShowHide

the demi-john is bulging ever-so slightly, so its now been placed in the bucket for safety, with the lid on.

Will let you all know how it tastes. 

Why the tea bags?
Are you trying to impart flavor or does it have something to do with the secondary fermentation?

[Mercury Wells]

Why the tea bags?
Are you trying to impart flavor or does it have something to do with the secondary fermentation?

Just for flavour really. (plus I'm not going to pay around 10£ for a bottle of Earl Grey IPA)

[Rev. Jade]

  For that price it better be one heavenly brew!