Sunday was a typical brew day. First I brewed up a new batch of Golden Ale, spicing it with the hop type, "cluster." It had a nice flavor, and a healthy fermentation by evening. Next I bottled and kegged about 30 liters of British Style IPA.
After cleaning up the mess from brewing and bottling, I was looking around the kitchen and realized that I still had work to do. Recently, I promised my wife that I'd try and develop a drink more aligned to her tastes. She really doesn't care for beer, but loves, "Angry Orchard" hard cider.
So how does one make an apple beer? I first pulled out 15 liters of our own apple cider which we had pressed back in the fall of 2014. The cider was sealed in a vacuum, and upon tasting, was still good. I poured all 15 liters into a fermenting bucket.
I next measured the sugar content in the apple juice and then computed what I'd have to add to it to get the gravity up to around 1.070. To raise the gravity, I decided to add some wort, so that it really is a type of apple beer. I pulled out the PME (malt extract), and made up a 2-liter batch of amber beer from the extract using the formula to see how much malt I should add to bring up the gravity of my apple juice.
After getting the wort to a boil, I left it boiling for around 10 minutes. Afterwards I cooled it down in the sink and added it to the fermenting bucket when it was within pitching tempratures.
Lastly I pitched the yeast called, "Top" (some cheap ale yeast from Australia) and put the airlock on. Fermentation was very active soon thereafter! I'll test it out in a few days and see if it needs anything to make it more palatable. I may lightly dry hop it to bring out the flavor. Only time will tell!
