Home Brew

[Ken L]

Nice. Have you tried taking the acidity down with precipitated chaulk ?

It worked a treat when I made rhubarb wine a few years back.

 

Edit: Never tried the dried tanin but I have use chips and a dose of strong tea. Both work but the chips are messy and when i used them for wine I found that I lost quite a bit 'cause they soaked it up.

 

NB: Have just signed myself up here. I don't expect to post much but signing up gives you access to the ABV calculators so you can play with your hydrometer.

Edited July 16, 2010 by Ken L

[corydoras]

If you can get your hands on a real cider apple, it will make your job a lot easier when it comes to blending the apples to get a good cider. Ours is mostly bramley with some cox (because those are the apple trees we inherited) but it's been difficult to get the acidity and tannin right. I experimented with crab apples and quinces to up the tannin and ended up adding a malolactic culture to knock the acidity back, but the results were not perfect. A good bittersweet cider apple would have made all the difference.

 

This place appears to sell them:

 

http://www.ciderappletrees.co.uk/

Bramleys are a cooking apple. They make crap cider.

[Zigs]

Bramleys are a cooking apple. They make crap cider.

 

Don't fumble over your words man, spit it out, tell us what you really think.

[Steve Walker]

Bramleys are a cooking apple. They make crap cider.

 

I agree - that's why I would recommend planting a bitter cider apple - you can get the sharp and the sweet from dessert and cooking apples, but the bitter (astringent, tannic) you need a proper cider apple for.

[Steve Walker]

Nice. Have you tried taking the acidity down with precipitated chaulk ?

It worked a treat when I made rhubarb wine a few years back.

 

I tried a little, but wasn't sure enough I liked it to add more. The malolactic fermentation is a feature of proper cider, and gives a more rounded flavour, so I went with that instead.

[corydoras]

Don't fumble over your words man, spit it out, tell us what you really think.

Never was much of a fumbler, spitting it out has always been my style.

 

I'll spit this out too. Letting a maiden apple tree set fruit in its first five years is bad practice, If you want your apple trees to grow up to be big, strong and heavy fruiters. We know a little bit about growing apples in Normandie

[chesters1]

Never was much of a fumbler, spitting it out has always been my style.

 

I'll spit this out too. Letting a maiden apple tree set fruit in its first five years is bad practice, If you want your apple trees to grow up to be big, strong and heavy fruiters. We know a little bit about growing apples in Normandie

having tasted a couple of french ciders (and tasteless french apples straight off the trees) you can grow the trees but like magners you dont know cider!

we used to make a great cider from apples from a long abandoned estate ,unfortunately all the trees and the Victorian glasshouses were bulldozed in preparation for exactly nothing ,the walled garden they were in is featureless bar an ancient mulberry.

the best pub version used to be bulmers traditional (from casks) but i had a pint a year or so ago and now its nothing like the original (strangely called original) not so strange coloured nor bits to strain through your tash

how is "traditional" not the same as original ,would worthers original (the sweets) been sold in plastic bags with original written on them? would they have been sold in bags at all ,is the recipe the exact same as the first batch ? traditional / original nothing but words

Edited July 17, 2010 by chesters1

[corydoras]

having tasted a couple of french ciders (and tasteless french apples straight off the trees) you can grow the trees but like magners you dont know cider!

Cider was brought to this country by the French chesters me old mate. Summat to do with that Guillame, duc de Normandie chap who came over and gave you all a poke in the eye. It's true that French eating apples ain't so hot. Anyway in France cider is something that you give to women and kids to wash down their crepes with. Men drink pommeau (about 12%-14% ABV) and Calvados (at least 40%ABV)

[Zigs]

They make cider brandy next door to me,

 

http://www.ciderbrandy.co.uk/

[chesters1]

Cider was brought to this country by the French chesters me old mate. Summat to do with that Guillame, duc de Normandie chap who came over and gave you all a poke in the eye. It's true that French eating apples ain't so hot. Anyway in France cider is something that you give to women and kids to wash down their crepes with. Men drink pommeau (about 12%-14% ABV) and Calvados (at least 40%ABV)

nonsense apple trees have been here long before the romans came so you cant tell me some brit didn't taste a half fermented apple and realise it was good!

it was thought the french "introduced" it but they probably introduced different or easier ways of making it making it available to the masses i expect ,probably a donkey turning wheel rather than man banging stick to crush apples.

if french cider was any good why does it need to be improved for the men? its easy enough to brew cider to more than 14% with the right yeasts ,once wine making caught on here (probably pre roman in the very south) fermentation of grape and apple (probably anything by the poor) no doubt was common ,as the romans introduced more suited vines it went as far north as they did... vines and all as its known its not as warm now than it was then here (global warming my arse) and grape vines grew far farther north than they do now in the open

 

calvados is ok but also bland for a "spirit" ,my el slurpo was far superior for cataracts etc

 

note if the normans had introduced cider then it would be the norse the normans were not french so its highly unlikely its origins come from a group who's origins are colder than ours probably the reverse we told them how to do it they invaded and demanded we supply more

 

this is interesting but speculative :

http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/webprojects2003/...003/history.htm

 

now its known that the romans found kentish people drinking stuff made from apples when they arrived then later europe was seen as having cider ! so perhaps cider as i said started here and the romans introduced it to their empire

 

as for apples themselves its well known even in the bronze age we traded in the far east so rather than a slow creep of apples from the middle east we may have just imported apples then ,its well known what happens when you chuck out an apple core ,some grow into apple trees perhaps we had them before they appeared across the channel? unlike grapes which rot or dry apples produce cider naturally so far easier to make than wine ,more importantly far easier to see how its made by the commoner ,wine probably had its hocus pocus values to make sure it had the poor wineless

Edited July 17, 2010 by chesters1