Brewing a Batch of Ed Wort’s Apfelwein
The raw ingredients for my hard cider
The middle of summer in North Florida in an old house that has trouble staying cool, is neither the time or place to brew beer. I tried a batch a couple of years ago just as it began to warm up and ended up with 5 gallons of brown ale that tasted like bananas. It was interesting but not very good and the majority of the beer was poured down the drain.
Despite this I have been itching to make something for the past week. After reading the message boards on the home brew forum I frequent I decided to try a batch of cider. There was a bunch of recipies on the site but I decided to base mine off one that is tried and true, Ed Wort’s Apfelwein. The only deviation I made from his recipe was instead of 2 pounds of dextrose (corn sugar) I decided to use one pound. I am pretty sure the only effect this will have is to lower the alcohol content.
When I got off from work I headed over to the Home Brew Den and picked up about a pound of dextrose, a funnel and a packet of Red Star Champagne yeast. The guy at the shop said that cider could ferment at a higher temperature than beer and that I should have no problems with my batch.
Once I had my dextrose and yeast I headed over to Sam’s Club to buy 5 gallons of apple juice. I ended up buying eight 96 ounce bottle of apple juice (I only needed 6 3/4 bottles but they came 2 to a pack). All of the ingredients cost me under $20.00.
The completed 5 gallon batch ready to ferment
Tonight after Mason and Becky were in bed I started my batch of cider. Before I packed my brewing equipment away in November I made sure it was clean so there were no scary surprises when I opened my brew box. After cleaning the glass carboy, funnel, stopper, airlock and measuring cup I sanitized each item.
The next step was to pour 1/2 of 6 bottle of apple juice into the car boy. When this was done I added 2.5 ounces of dextrose to the 6 bottles and shook them vigorously to make sure they were well mixed. I then poured the apple juice that was in each of them into my carboy.
I then opened my yeast packet and poured it into the carboy. I washed the yeast that got stuck on the funnel with some apple juice out of the 7th bottle and filled the carboy a little past the point where it starts curving up. In total it now contains 6 1/2 bottle of apple juice, 15 ounces of dextrose and 1 packet of champagne yeast.
Overall making cider was much easier than brewing a batch of beer. My cider is now going to go and sit in the spare bedroom closet for 3-4 weeks and I hope that it turns out well.
