Apples?

[bigmf]

I have an apple tree in my yard, and thought it might be an idea to put some of those apples to use. Does anyone know any good recipies? Has anyone used apples in their brew before? Any pointers? Thanks..

Big

[Tweek]

how bout making a cider?

[YamahaXS]

what little i know suggest using 2 or 3 variety of apples. You will need to press them. Perhaps your LHBS has a press you can rent/borrow. There is yeast on the skin of apples that will lead to fermentation. Although YOu might want to use a champaigne yeast. I don't know if you boil or not. I know that traditionally, the apples were just pressed and allowed to ferment naturally.


Now, leave it out through the winter, and remove the ice periodically and you get Apple Jack. Funny thing to name a children cereal after!

[BenP78]

I had an extremely tasty brew from Unibroue called Ephemere that's brewed with apples. It wasn't a cider, but a beer with apples.

[Richard English]

Cider is very easy to make - the main difficulty is pressing the apples since they are very tough.

For small quantities you can simply core them and use a liquidiser; larger quantities do need to be pressed. Traditional farmouse cider is made by simply leaving the juice to ferment but it's more reliable to use a proper cider yeast.

Cider can be bottled in the same way as beer and, as with beer, bottle conditioning gets better results. Alternatively, providing you don't want to keep the brew for too long, just put it into a cask and allow the secondary fermentation to provide the blanket and the sparkle. Of course, cider does not have to be sparkling (except in the eyes of the chemical fizz makers); flat cider is a fine drink.

Traditional farmouse cider, often known as scrumpy over here, is usually flat and can be made very strong, which helps its keeping; strong scrumpy will keep for some months. It does not matter if it's cloudy; this is not a fault in scrumpy.

[toneyc]

Hang on, there, the recipes(all two of them) that I've seen for scrumpy all include meat. Can you clear up my confusion, here?

:)
Thanks,
Toney.

[Richard English]

It is not unknown for meat to be added to beer and cider recipes but it is uncommon. Why this should be is unclear but my feeling is that it's simply a question of cost. Until recently meat had been a luxury product and, even now, fruits and vegetables are cheaper.

I suspect that meat may well have formed part of the fermentable solids for farmhouse cider in the past since farms = rats. Fermenting vats = food and drink. Alcohol fumes and carbon dioxide = anaethesia. Anaethesia = sleep. Sleep = falling into the wort. Falling into the wort = drowning.

Rat ale, anyone?

[danno]

..... and the moral of the story is, DON'T LOSE the little red cap for your one piece airlock.....

:D

[davesarman]

New Glarus used to brew a wonderful apple ale, but they discontinued it a few years back. I've tried a few times to recreate that beer, but each time have underestimated the amount of apples to use. My last batch used 5 pounds of granny smith apples. I just chopped them up in my food processor and added to the secondary. Apples have a subtle flavor when mixed with malt and especially hops, so go easy on the hops, they can dominate the apple flavor quickly. I've been thinking about trying another batch this fall and roasting the apples before I put them in the fermenter to see if I can get that apple sweetness that the New Glarus beer had. Those are my tips, for whatever it's worth.

[bigmf]

It looks like I'll have to wait for next year anyway. 85% of the apples haveeither fallen, got thrown away, frozen or made into pies. Next year I'll be ready.

Big

[YamahaXS]

FYI, cider requires about 20#'s of apples per GALLON!!!

[Beerconnoisseur]

I seem to remember reading somewhere, that it is recommended to mix several different types of apple, since that will give the complex, cider flavor that you probably want. Granny Smith or even McIntosh will probably work better than Red Delicious, but again, this is just from what I remember.

Personally, I've never had too much urge to include apple with my beer; Woodchuck does a good enough job of providing several different (and quite tasty!) varities of cider.