Craft Hard Cider: Recipes, Tips, and Ideas for Making & Enjoying Hard Cider
Winter: Lager yeast fermented hot and aged on hickory. One day I woke up with a crazy idea for a hard cider recipe. Okay, it’s more than one day but, sometimes they actually work. I had been reading about fermentation temperatures and whether hotter or colder fermentations are better. I noted that much of the … Continue reading Making Winter Cider
The Source of Aroma Compounds In Hard Cider The aroma of hard cider is vital to its flavor and ultimately, it’s quality. If a cider has unpleasant or off-flavors, it can turn off potential drinkers or for home cider makers, the loss of bragging rights at your next get-together or family reunion. That aroma is … Continue reading Hard Cider Aroma Sources
While this is only my third edition of popcorn and hard cider, I’m afraid I’m wearing out my Zippy Pop pan. It’s definitely not new but I do still thoroughly enjoy it. Some of my creations are repeats or slight variations of my first post on popcorn or my second post. However, I also sometimes … Continue reading Popcorn and Hard Cider III
Sorbitol: The Hidden Sweetener I don’t have access to perry pears and am generally limited to dessert pears or cooking pears. I have tried a number of varieties including Asian pears. However, one of my favorites to use is Red Bartlett. I can purchase them locally from a large organic orchard. Many of the dessert … Continue reading Sorbitol: The Hidden Sweetener
This is the second of the non-Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast that I plan to explore next season. In my first post on alternative yeast for hard cider, I covered Lachancea thermotolerans. A yeast that was misclassified for over 70 years before being identified through gene sequencing in 2003. This post is about Hanseniaspora uvarum, which is … Continue reading Alternative Cider Yeast: Hanseniaspora uvarum Overview
As I noted in my Mâlus Trivium post about potential alternative yeast for hard cider, there are several I plan to trial for the next season so I thought I would highlight each. One of those is Lachancea thermotolerans. The Lanchancea genus is a relatively newcomer from a classification perspective. In 2003, a new multi-gene … Continue reading Alternative Cider Yeast: Lachancea thermotolerans Overview
Nothing does a better job of showcasing hard cider than food. My wife and I are hopeful that we can soon restart our cider parties. In the meantime, we continue to explore different food and cider pairings. One of my recent favorites was a spicy Thai chicken soup with rice noodles that my wife made. … Continue reading Thai Chicken Soup and Cider
Being able to create a hard cider with some residual sweetness is often referred to as the holy grail of cider. The reason for this is because that sweetness can be used to balance the high acids often found in dessert apples and the tannins found in cider apples. This cider season I set about … Continue reading Experiments in Sweetness: Sweet Hard Cider
Usually, my answer to a question about hard cider is “it depends”. I generally try not to be definitive because there are simply so many unknown factors that being definitive is almost always wrong. However, for this article, I’m going to argue a definitive. The definitive is that you should not use Campden tables in … Continue reading Stop Killing Your Juice: The Argument Against Campden
Sensory Impact of Compounds in Hard Cider Have you ever wondered how the level of certain compounds can impact the sensory perception of others? Okay, we all know I’m an apple geek so stick with me. Hard cider is generally a balance of sweet, sour, astringency, and bitterness. You can add aroma and we can … Continue reading Sensory Impact of Various Compounds in Hard Cider
