Getting back at it.
It’s been a long time. Years. Seems I went and bought a house – bought a project – and stopped brewing. For nearly seven years, BlackDog Brewing took a backseat to life and work and homeownership. But no more! I have a batch of cider fermenting as we speak.
WHAT?! Cider??? Yep. Not beer, but hard apple cider. Why? Well, because 1) I have five apples trees, and the two largest ones ripen in late June, so I get hundreds of apples all at once. And 2) the beer brewing equipment BlackDog uses was designed and built by a company that no longer exists. So I’ll need to spend some time (and money) searching around for generic parts and ingredients since the proprietary stuff doesn’t exist anymore. C’est la Vie. :::Cough Cough::: PicoBrew.
So, the cider: “Holy Mother Tucker.” As with all things BlackDog, the name is a reference to a family dog. This time it’s my big sister’s family dog from back when her kids were young, Tucker. Tucker was a beautiful red golden retreiver, and the goodest of good boys. I don’t have many pictures of Tucker left over from back then, but that’s not a reflection of this loyal, kind hearted soul. The label will be made featuring the best picture I’ve got – Tucker hiding behind a wall at the beach in Capitola Village, California. I’m sure he was patiently waiting for one of the kids to finish surfing, or maybe finish a sand castle.
The apples came from two trees in my backyard, and a third at my brother’s house. In total, this batch has about 135 pounds of apples which Mom helped me process. The grinder and press in the pictures came from Booze Brothers Brewery in Vista. They’d finished their small batch experimentation, and were sizing up to bigger equipment. So I took advantage and bought the whole setup for $100. (See? Even when I’m not brewing I’m still thinking of brewing.) The grinder is hand-powered, and the press accommodates enough apple mash to squeeze out about a gallon of juice. It’s been hot in here this summer, so we set up the grinder and press on a folding table in my breakfast nook. It was much better than working outside, but *THE MESS!!* I swear my house was sticky for two days after all of that work.
All ground and pressed, that translated to about 9 gallons of cider. After adjusting for the temperature in my house that day, my test sample suggested this batch should come out to about 5.9% alcohol. The plan is to back-sweeten with an organic apple juice concentrate, and bottle the whole batch in 12 ounce bottles. I’ll use a plastic 20oz coke bottle as a tester to let me know when things are nicely carbonated, then pasteurize the bottles in batches with a sous vide cooker. In theory, it’s going to be great! I’ll keep you posted.
