[Sca-cooks] Stefan finally succeeds in making cider

[Stefan li Rous]

Mel replied to me with:
> > Anyway, I had bought a gallon of cider for the revel <snip>Tasting it
> > in early December, it was alcoholic
Hmmm. What I forgot to mention again is that I've never had a mead 
fail, but all my ciders before this had failed, for various reasons.
> Does this mean the stuff you refer to as cider was not originally
> alcoholic? Cider in the UK always is
Yes. Here you will often find "apple cider" and "apple juice" used 
interchangeably. The "apple juice" is almost always filtered. The 
"apple cider" may or may not be. The usual American term for alcoholic 
cider is "hard cider".
> I use a couple of Frenchbooks for cider making they can be got on
> Amazon.fr
> but are only much use if you read French :( Let me know if you want
> details
I've also gotten some good info from this list over the years, which is 
now in the Florilegium:
cider-art         (23K) 10/31/95    Article on brewing ciders.
cider-msg         (72K)  7/ 1/04    Apple and other ciders. Cider 
presses.

And if I had been *trying* to ferment the cider, I probably would have 
referred to these. Still doesn't mean I would have gotten something 
drinkable. :-)
> > Maybe it's time to siphon off what is left and bottle it.
>
> > From what you say it seems you got a natural yeast ?
Correct. From the air? From the spices? I don't know. But that I 
actually got something drinkable via a natural yeast, without trying, 
was part of what I was wanting to illustrate. Don't know if I tried it 
again whether it would happen again or not.
> If it orked out
> > well don't bin the eresidue but use it it proper medieval fashion 
> for your
> next batch :)
Certainly worth considering. Except I'm not sure how to store it since 
I don't expect to make more for awhile. I still haven't finished off 
what was left from the Yule Revel in early December. And which part 
should I save? The sludge in the bottom? Or some of the cider itself? 
Maybe freeze some of the latter?

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