Sunday, July 27, 2008

Apfelwein!

At this point I think I'll ferment just about anything! I've been reading a lot of homebrew forums and EdWort at Homebrewtalk posted this recipe for German hard apple cider, or Apfelwein. It seemed so easy that I thought I should give it a shot. Here's how the "brew day" went.


Here are the ingredients for this fermented coctail: 5 galons of natural, pasturized apple juice from Costco, of course. 2 lbs of corn sugar, and 1 packet of dry yeast. You're supposed to use Red Star Montrachet, but Wayne at Barley and Wine didn't have any. He recommended Lavlin #EC-1118 Champagne Wine Yeast for the same clean, crisp, dry finish that the Montrachet would have produced.

OK, um, I usually put "brewing" photos here but there was no brewing, just mixing and pouring. Here's the recipe right from EdWort:

Ingredients

5 Gallons 100% Apple Juice (No preservatives or additives) I use Tree Top Apple Juice
2 pounds of dextrose (corn sugar) in one pound bags
1 five gram packet of Montrachet Wine Yeast

Equipment

5 Gallon Carboy (I use a Better Bottle)
Carboy Cap or Stopper with Airlock
Funnel
  1. First sanitize the carboy, airlock, funnel, stopper or carboy cap.
  2. Open one gallon bottle of apple juice and pour half of it into the carboy using the funnel.
  3. Open one bag of Dextrose and carefully add it to the now half full bottle of apple juice. Shake well.
  4. Repeat Steps 2 and 3, then go to step 5.
  5. Pour in the mixture of Apple Juice and Dextrose from both bottles into the carboy.
  6. Add all but 1 quart of remaining 3 gallons of apple juice to the carboy.
  7. Open the packet of Montrachet Yeast and pour it into the neck of the funnel.
  8. Use the remaining quart of juice to wash down any yeast that sticks. I am able to fit all but 3 ounces of apple juice into a 5 gallon Better Bottle. You may need to be patient to let the foam die down from all shaking and pouring.
  9. Put your stopper or carboy cap on with an airlock and fill the airlock with cheap vodka. No bacteria will live in vodka and if you get suckback, you just boosted the abv.
The outcome?


Here is the finished product with my son in the background hamming it up! It's mighty clear for a "brew day" concoction.


Here's a picture of the Apfelwein in my "new to me" fermentation chamber! Applause!!!!!!!!! My son and I just picked this up today in Turlock for as close to nothing as you can get.

This stuff will sit in this chest freezer (with temp controller of course) at 70 degrees for the next 6 weeks. 6 weeks? Yup, 6 weeks. It ferments slow and should finish out at around 0.999 on the hydrometer or at just about 8.13 ABV. Yikes, that's some serious alcohol. I might just have to invite Mark over to help drink this stuff!

And, no, I haven't built the kegerator yet. I may have to wait until next month to buy the chest freezer. I've got a broken window to fix on one of our french doors and that ate up quite a bit of funds!

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