Craft Hard Cider: Recipes, Tips, and Ideas for Making & Enjoying Hard Cider
Headspace is the amount of air or open space you have in your container above the liquid. A common question when making cider is how much headspace should you have in your fermenter for primary fermentation? The next question is usually how much you should have when aging your hard cider. There are several considerations … Continue reading The Headspace Conundrum
Key numbers for understanding carbon dioxide in cider. I have written various articles about carbon dioxide (CO2) in cider. I’ve provided details about what volumes CO2 means, how sugar is converted to CO2, how to force carbonate cider with a keg, and just how carbonation can impact your method for making hard cider (search the … Continue reading Understanding CO2 in Cider
When apple season is winding down and the leaves are starting to change, it becomes time to think about next year. Specifically, it’s time to start thinking about apple tree propagation and I am not talking about making your scion list. I’m talking about bud grafting. Bud grafting has been the most effective grafting method … Continue reading Bud Grafting Apple Trees
Impact of Pectic Enzyme - Juice Application Pectolyase, pectozyme, and polygalacturonase are three types of pectic emzymes or what are often called pectinases. These are naturally occurring compounds found in plants that breakdown the polysaccharide known as pectin. Pectin gives structure and strength to the plant cells. This structure is what make jelly and jam become … Continue reading Pectic Enzyme: Juice Application
It is common to talk about fermentation in stages and often there are three stages identified. If you are talking about a wild or natural fermentation, those stages might be how initially non-Saccharomyces strains start the fermentation. This is followed by Saccharomyces yeast that complete fermentation. The final stage is maturation where Brettanomyces strains often … Continue reading Fermentation Stages of Yeast
5-caffeoylquinic Acid And it’s health benefits I like the motto, ”All things in moderation”. I enjoy my hard cider with dinner and for me, one is plenty. I love contemplating the aroma, the flavor, and how it goes with the food. What I also enjoy is that hard cider can have healthful aspects. It’s part … Continue reading Cider and Health: 5-caffeoylquinic Acid
You may have noted that my pizza and cider posts have slowed down. That is not because I don’t like pizza and cider or that I stopped making sourdough. It’s mostly because we discovered another great option for sourdough discard: crackers. Yes, I will post some recipes because sourdough cheese crackers and hard cider are … Continue reading Pizza & Hard Cider: Veggie Edition
Polysaccharides and their influence on wine. Polysaccharides are carbohydrates, which are basically simple sugars, monosaccharides like glucose and fructose, linked together in long chains. Yeast can break these down into the simple sugars for use in creating ATP for reproduction. However, polysaccharides also react and combine with many endogenous compounds found in wine and cider. … Continue reading Cider Words: Polysaccharides
I have been harvesting and including apple peels in my hard cider for several years. As I have noted in other articles (see the tips page), peels are an excellent way to enhance the organoleptic properties of your hard cider. Want a darker hue to your cider, include peels from red apples in your fermenter. … Continue reading Apple Peel Preparation
Glucophilic and Fructophilic An interesting aspect about yeast is the preference it has for types of sugar. Most yeast prefer glucose so they are what is called glucophilic. The most common fermentation yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, used for wine, beer, and bread is generally glucophilic. While many strains are capble of processing glucose snd fructose, some … Continue reading Cider Words: Glucophilic & Fructophilic
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