[Sca-cooks] cider making

[Stefan li Rous]

Drakey replied to me with:

>> Oh??? I thought apple juice and apple cider as sold in the grocery
>
> To make proper cider you need to buy apples made from varieties of
> apples that are used to make cider (usually smaller and tarter) or if
> you are lucky the orchard will juice them for you as juicing and
> filtering your own apples is a pain in the *ss.

I'm a long way from apple growing country, much less anywhere that has cider
apples. So I think we'll stick to the available juices.


> I use normal pasteurised apple juice from the supermarket and add food
> acids (usually malic & tartaric) to make the juice tarter...  About
> 30-50g all up for 5 gallons does the trick nicely.

Okay. I assume I can get this malic or tartaric acid at a brewing supply store
or by mail order?


>> stores carry unpasterized, Freshly squeezed apple cider/juice. I'll
>> probably try this next time instead of the frozen or bottled stuff.
>
> I use pasteurised apple juice so I don't have to sterilize the wort.

Okay. I thought part of my problem might have been that the treatments for the
store bought juices might have prevented the added yeasts from also growing, so
I was going to go with the natural yeasts present. But yes, I understand that I
might not be getting the yeasts I really want that way.


>> We went out looking at houses this afternoon. When we get to the point
>> of looking at the insides, I think I will be looking for houses that
>> aren't carpetted everywhere. So I can do some brewing with less fear
>> of a major cleanup project if the bottles or fermenter explodes.
>
> Agreed, stout spills in carpet are kinda hard to remove...

I don't particularly care for beers and ales, although the traveling
keg party at Pennsic did have some I liked. So I was mainly thinking of meads
and ciders which I guess would be sticky more than staining. But an awlfully
large number of the houses we glanced in at today had white or very light
colored carpets.
One of the other things we will be looking for is a much larger kitchen and
almost certainly one that is not all electric.

Stefan

--
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris            Austin, Texas          stefan at texas.net
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****