Hard Cider Part IV: The Bottling

It's judgment time for my first batch of homebrewed hard cider. If you need a refresher, the adventure begins here. In late December I did fermentation, and racking about two months after that. I haven't spoken of it since then, because nothing has happened to my cider in the past seven months, other than sitting in secondary (and hypothetically becoming more clear and refined with age).

Recently, I opened up the bucket again and bottled two fifths of my premiere beverage in one-gallon jugs. The tasting was hosted by our friends in their new home. The cider was critically acclaimed. The apple flavor is subdued, but distinctive; slightly tart, somewhat yeasty. We experimented with several additives to hack the taste--including sugar cubes and fresh (regular) apple cider--but the majority opinion seemed to favor drinking it straight.

This process has been a great first homebrew learning experiment. For my next batch, I think I'll try a more complex recipe. But before I can start, I have four gallons of cider I need to drink. Is anyone thirsty?

Cider racking

Today I 'racked' my hard cider. Racking is a fancy brewing term for siphoning the juice through a tube from one bucket into another bucket. It's not very complicated, but I still prepared a multi-photo blog post to display the process. It turns out that homebrewing is just a few simple activities, separated by long periods of waiting. Dump stuff into a bucket, wait; transfer it to another bucket, wait; open it up and drink it. In that framework, racking is an EVENT! and that makes it noteworthy by default. Nearly two full months after I started the process, I was very excited to pop open the airtight seal on my primary fermenting bucket, and see what was inside. Before I got to that, though, my first step was sterilizing all the equipment I'd be using (we're at the first image now, if you would like to follow along). This is a very important step. It ensures that we don't get any crap into the cider and mess stuff up. Interestingly, I am doing some research at work that has to do with sterilization of medical equipment, so it's a topic that has been on my mind lately. For homebrewing, I fill the bucket with water and cleaning solution and just dump everything inside. It is clean like magic! On the second photo, you can see my improvised mortar and pestle. I crushed 5 Campden tablets and put the powder into my secondary bucket. This stuff will help to kill bacteria and preserve the cider. If I was labeling my drinks, I would have to write 'contains preservatives' on the label. Okay, time to open up the bucket and make the transfer! The third and fourth images show different stages of the racking process. The cider in the primary bucket (on the right) is a very deep color, kind of like, well, fresh apple cider. With only a little juice in the secondary bucket, it's very light and yellow. Once a gallon has been siphoned across, it has already darkened significantly. When I got to the bottom of the bucket and took out the siphon, there was a layer of dark muck on the bottom. This sludge is full of the dead yeasts that fermented my cider for me. Their sacrifice was not in vain. But although we appreciate their contribution, we don't want to drink them, so they got left behind. The lid goes on the secondary bucket, full of fermented apple juice (minus yeast). It was probably a bit lighter in color than the cloudy juice in the primary. I didn't take a picture, though, so the world may never know. Now that it's sealed around the rim and air-tight with a fancy airlock, I can forget about it again for several months. It's supposed to 'clarify' during that time, improving in taste and appearance. But... what does it taste like now? I was a little nervous to find out. Before we get to the tasting, let's have a Science Moment. Next slide, please. In the second-to-last photo, you can see the bottom of a half gallon apple juice bottle. I was saving these on purpose. I planned to use them for storing the finished cider. I changed my mind about that, because I learned an important lesson today about cleaning: if you don't wash out all the juice from your bottles, you'll get to see the results of natural fermentation! That's two months' worth of mold and slime. Gross. But also kind of cool. Finally, I worked up the nerve to actually taste my hard cider. The juice is cloudy, which should decrease over time. I tapped all my wine tasting experience, took a sip, and detected... a distinct taste of apples. It seems to be on the low end of ABV, somewhere around 5% alcohol, which would be about right. Next time I'll buy a hydrometer and find out for sure. Overall, it tastes pretty good, so I'm happy! It would probably be fine to drink it all now, but I've got five gallons of the stuff and besides, I'm eager to see how it changes with aging.

Home brewing adventure

After I bought my brewing supplies, it was a few days before I made it to my local supermarket to pick up five gallons of 'soft' cider. I have never been more excited about a trip to Cub Foods.

On the day before Christmas Eve, I carefully sanitized all my stuff and poured the apple juice in to my fermentation bucket. I kept the plastic jugs to use for bottling the hard cider when it's done. I stirred some yeast nutrient in with the juice, put the lid on the bucket, and whacked a "smack pack" of yeast. Next morning, the plastic package was swollen with hungry and activated yeast molecules. I opened the bucket and tossed in the yeast. Then I sealed it up again and we left home to celebrate Christmas in four locations over the course of two days.

When we returned home, there was no discernible activity in the airlock; in other words, it didn't look like fermentation was happening. Had my yeasts fallen asleep while we were away? We bought a fancy new room heater to warm my brewing area up to the recommended minimum temperature, and the yeast woke up again. As of yesterday, it was happily fermenting in the juice. After a month or so in primary, it should be all done turning into hard cider, and it'll just take some time to clarify and mellow out before it's ready to drink.

Applecraft: home-brewed hard cider

Setting aside, for the moment, plans to put video game controllers in guitars or pick locks, I took the plunge in a new hobby. I decided to brew hard cider and got myself some fermentation supplies from Northern Brewer as an early Christmas gift!

Home-brewing beer is cool, but it's also complicated. You've got all those ingredients, all those steps, and all that equipment. So then I thought about distilling me some rum, but that's even more difficult and probably illegal? But the first issue of craft zine set off my imagination along the lines of authentic hard cider. Supposedly it's different and better than the commercial stuff, which makes it worth the time (I can already buy good beers and rum). Best of all, it's cheap and easy! Take your apple juice, add yeast and time, and you've got some cider! If all goes well, some friends will be drinking bottles of homebrew for next Christmas.