The Champagne of Blogs

Sarah and I joined the Painters at Portland Nursery’s annual Apple Festival this morning, and I walked away with 11 gallons of Hood River Cider. I talked to the grower, and he had just pressed the cider yesterday, mostly of Gala apples. 11 gallons may seem like an awful lot of cider (and it is), but the batch I made last year was so good, and so easy, I thought I’d better make a double-batch this year.Of course, doing the same thing twice is just boring, so I decided to make two different recipes:

1. Bathtub Shampagne. Simply dump 5 gallons Ryan’s Apple Cider into sanitized carboy. It is illegal to sell unpasteurized cider, so there are no pesky germs in there to compete with the desireable yeast, in this case, White Labs’ Champagne Wine Yeast (#WLP715). This is the same stuff I made last year that resulted in a dry, tart and refreshing cider with lots of champagne flavor. Very tasty and it was especially popular with Becca. O.G.: 1.056 @71 degrees F.
2. B-Side Cider. With this one, I got a little wackier. I started by heating 1 gallon of cider in a big stockpot, and added to that 3 lbs. of “neighborhood” honey from Barlean’s Honey in Milwaukee, Oregon. The “neighborhood” designation differentiates it from “apple” or “clover” honey, and just means that the bees who made this honey did so by sampling flowers in the vicinity of the Barlean’s apiary. I brought that mix to a boil, added 2-3 cups of brown sugar and a special blend of autumn spices: dried ginger, ground nutmeg, cinnamon and about 3 tablespoons of real vanilla extract. It smelled so delicious, it was tough to put it in a fermenter with the other 4 gallons of cider, but I did. My hope is that this is a sweeter, more alcoholic version of the above, with a bit more complex spiciness. I also used a cider yeast instead of champagne yeast, White Labs’ English Cider Yeast (#WLP775). O.G.: 1.082 @78 degrees F.

In other news, I also bottled and corked the mead I made a little more than a year ago. I didn’t take good notes as to quantities or gravities, but seem to recall about 18 lbs. of honey put into the batch. Since I didn’t have the historic information, I didn’t even bother taking a final gravity, but it is a very tasty mead. The alcohol heat is a little stronger than I’d like, but it does grow on you. Nice pale yellow color, straw-like and just a little bit cloudy. A very pleasant drink that I think would go very well with a fine cigar. It will be interesting to see how it changes over the years, as I plan on sitting on a few of these bottles for a good long while.