Cider review:Wyder's Raspberry Cider

I've wanted to try this cider for a while and finally found it on sale. I'm glad I did, it's good! The label says dry, but it's still has a good level of residual sugar in it. The raspberry flavor is nice, not overpowering or barely a wisp of flavor. This is a keeper! Too bad it disappears so fast...

Cider review: 2 Towns Ciderhouse - The Incider

I can across 2 Towns Ciderhouse - the Incider over at By The Bottle (a great bottle shop where you buy single bottles of beers/ciders/meads from around the country/world).

The Incider is hand crafted in Oregon (Yah for local brews!). It is a semi-sweet, hard apple cyder.
It is not as sweet as the Crisp Apple from Angry Orchard, but the flavor is very good, they use a lot of local apples and it shows).

This is a good one to drink when I find it.

Cider review: Angry Orchard Crisp Apple

My first commercial Apply Cider review is of Angry Orchard's Crisp Apple. I enjoyed this one, it's semi-sweet, not overly bitter. A nice crisp flavor, good apple flavors. I will be buying more of this.

Cider review: Intro

Well, since I cannot drink beer these days without getting a migraine headache (I am now sensitive to gluten - thanks for the allergy Mom), I've been sampling hard ciders that I find. I prefer sweeter ciders so that will affect my reviews. And I am going to be adding additional sweeteners to my home-brews since they have been dryer than I prefer.

On to the reviews!

Homebrew taste test report

I tasted tested 2 bottles of my homebrew apple cyder I started 2012-07-07. Same apple juice/yeast, but one was made with berry juice and the other with berry extract.

The bottle with the berry extract tastes like a normal apple cider, rather tart, very little berry flavor.

The bottle with the apple/berry mixture has a really good mix of flavors, I like the flavor. Now I need to work on how sweet/dry the cider is..

And I used bentonite to try to clear the cider, it did not clear at all.

More Cyder!

I found a small, local apple producer who was pressing apples and selling the raw juice so I picked up 5 gallons for $50. I set aside 2 gallons for Q and started 3 batches of hard cyder using 3 different yeasts.
The yeasts I selected are:

• Safale US-105 dry ale yeast
• Vinters harvest MA33 premium wine yeast - acid reducing strain
• Lalvin EC1118

So far the MA33 has mostly stopped bubbling, but the other two are still bubbling. The cooler weather means the yeast ferment slower.

I also deviated from my standard brew process to use potasium metabisulfate and pectic enzyme. I wanted to make sure all wild yeasts are killed off (the potasium) and wanted to try to make the cyder a little clearer (pectin enzyme). 

I am really curious how these turn out... I want to use sucrose to sweeten them before I bottle them. And I am going to not try to re-carbonate them.

I had a bottle of my cyder I started 2011-08. It was better than the McMenimans hard cyder I had yesterday, the McMenimans was more harsh and bitter. 

Busy weekend

I was stuck at home for the weekend due to work so I spent my time making lots of things.

• I bottled 20 bottles of cyder (2 different apple/berry blends) (Making cyder). The Cyder with only the berry extract is good, the berry flavor is not overpowering. The one made with berry juice is a bit tart and needs to age for at least 6 months to mellow it out.
• Made 2x32 oz containers of yogurt from a gallon of milk
• And made/canned jam from blueberries, raspberries, and marionberries using Pomona Pectin. I used only 3/4 cup of sugar (evil sugar) and 4 cups of mashed and tasty berries. These berries came from local growers up here in the PNW. This made 6 pints, one has already been devoured... Yummy!

2 new cyders started....

I started 2 new cyders this weekend. The first uses a berry juice blend, the 2nd uses a natural raspberry fruit flavoring. It will be interesting to see how they turn out.

2 new batches

Last Thursday night I stopped by Trader Joes and picked up some supplies to make more cyder. I bought a bottle of Trader Joes Blackberry crush and one of Trader Joes McIntosh Apple Juice. I'm working on my cyder recipe that I last made a year ago that I opened last weekend and was really impressed with how it had mellowed out and tasted.

I also started a batch of maple wine using 2 32 oz bottles of Trader Joes 100% pure Vermont grade A dark amber maple syrup. Shall see how it goes. The recipes I used is at: http://hbd.org/brewery/cm3/recs/10_25.html

Bottle the berry cyder

I bottled the berry cyder last night. 7 500ml bottles, I added 2 sugar drops to four of them, the other 3 I did not use the sugar drops. Want to see how the carbonation works.
Taste test: little acidic, but tasted like berries. Not bad. Did not get a real strong alcohol 'zing'.

Berry cyder racked

I racked the Berry cyder, my taste test was that it is pretty good, getting close to a RF black cherry/raspberry cyder..

Brew update

I bottled the cyser I started on 6/5/2010. Was really sweet with a nice kick. I added 2 sugar drops to each bottle this time, want to see if that carbonates them better.

The current batch is still bubbling.

Brewing experiment

Started a new brewing experiment tonight. Making a hard cyder, used apple juice, sugar, and blackberry crush (blackberry/apply/grape juice). Shall be interesting to see how it turns out. I plan to re-ferment in the bottle to make it sparkle.

2010-07-05: checked last night, bubbling quite well