brewing in maine

We tried some cider before it fully carbonated and man is it alcoholic, to the point that it overwhelms the other flavors and completely takes over the cider. I’m thinking the quantity of Maker’s Mark might have been too much, or maybe the yeast didn’t finish their job properly and convert some of the more solventy alcohols down to their final forms.

I’m hoping that given some time the flavors will mellow and with cold and carbonation things will even out a bit.

As for the Framboise I dumped half of it (a full case!) before I said, “maybe I should just try one of these, just to be sure.” It was spectacular! Any hint of the cardboard oxidized flavor of the one previously tasted bottle was gone completely – these were great beers. A lucky break – I saved the rest for storage.

The Tripel is still in the fridge cold conditioning. I’ve been waffling between bottling it in Belgian bottles and just kegging the damn thing so I can drink it. I don’t have quite enough bottles, nor corks or corker, so I haven’t done anything yet.

Also there’s a Porter in the future, someday.

Happy new year.

I’ve been so busy with house projects I haven’t had time to brew or post about it. The tripel is still in secondary cold conditioning and the cider is still in its bucket, unbottled. But I just finished the last of the Helles keg, so that’s something. Still the best beer I’ve made and one I will repeat next spring.

If I can get all the tile installed that I have to do this week I might finally get around to bottling. But it means I’ll have to come to grips with dumping both cases of Framboise that went cardboard on me. I guess I have to finally accept it.

I went ahead with the cider recipe and it’s fermenting in my 7.5 gallon bucket right now. Mistakes were made, but I’m thinking they won’t be a big deal.

I bought 7 gallons of local cider from the grocery store – it was pasteurized – and decided upon some research to skip the Camden tablets entirely. I sanitized the bucket, lock and cover and dumped it all in. OG on the cider was around 1.042.

Into the cider went both vials of yeast, a White Labs English Cider WLP775 and a White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale (Westmalle yeast). Then I realized that the cider temp had to be somewhere in the low fifties. Not good.

No action for 24 hours, but then a little bit of bubbling, and by this morning it’s cranking. The top of the bucket is bulged up and the lock is burping away. Without Campden tablets I do have to be very careful about the timing of my next sugar addition (the honey, molasses and cane sugar) because once the yeast are done something else might move in. I intend to check the gravity in another 24 hours to see where we’ve gotten to.

The cider yeast attenuation is over 80% and the Westmalle is around 80% tops so this should be nice, dry, strong cider when all is said and done.

Last year we did two ciders, one straight up with wine yeast, another with British ale yeast. The Brit ale came out better, slightly less dry and with more complex flavor. The wine yeast cider was good, but very dry.

This year it’s going up a notch. The initial plan (likely to change) is as follows, for a 7 gallon batch:

7 gallons apple cider (~60 lbs.)
1 lb. molasses
1 lb. local honey (from our bees, thanks ladies!)
4lb. table sugar
1 cup pureed raisins

Wyeast 4766 Cider
Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale

Ferment the cider first with the 4766. Then add sugars, raisins and Belgian yeast. After fermentation is wrapped up add 4oz medium toast bourbon-soaked French oak cubes along with the bourbon. Might try to use finings as well to clear it up.

The goal is a complex, strong cider that doesn’t ferment all the way down to dry, ready in time for the holidays. Might do it this weekend…maybe next.