So I guess I've been kind of obsessed with brewing a little bit lately. Used to be I'd spend pretty much all my free time browsing here, or facebook or Tas' FoTW forum, but lately I've been adding Home Brew Talk in the mix and planning brews more than smoking. Hopefully once the weather turns better again that'll even out some.
But anyway, I found this recipe for Unicorn Blood. It's an apple/cherry cider, and seemed pretty simple. I had never tried making a cider before so I thought let's give it a shot.
the original recipe was for 5 gallons and was 7 parts TreeTop 3 apple blend and 1 part R.W. Knutsen's Just Black Cherry juice, pitched with ale yeast.
So, my only equipment right now is for 1 gallon batches, so I picked up 2 half gallons of tree top and 1 quart of the cherry juice. My brother happened to be going to the brew supply store (he's making a pea pod beer from a 1880s recipe book, but that's a whole different thread) so I tagged along and picked up a vial of yeast.
On Friday (3/17) I mixed up 3 quarts of the apple juice with 1 quart of cherry, so a little heavier on the cherry than the original. In the recipe thread there was lots of talk of adding sugar to get the gravity up and make it a little higher in alcohol, but I measured the gravity of this mix and it was 1.060 already so I didn't feel like I needed to add more. With where I'm planning on taking this it should finish about 6.5% ABV which is plenty for me!
I went ahead an pitched the yeast and put it in the closet to get going. It took about 24 hours to see any activity but then it took off rather actively. Plenty of gunk coming out the blow off tube.
On Monday I switched out the blow off tube for a proper air lock and it's still bubbling away about 3 or 4 bubbles a minute.
I'm planning on a slightly sweet, lightly carbed, bottled cider, so I'm planning on letting this go until the bubble slow to about 1 a minute and then start checking the gravity, with an eye to finish at around 1.010 gravity. At that point I'll add some priming sugar (maybe honey) and bottle, and give it a few days to carb up. Once the carbonization is where I want it, I'll stove top pasteurize the bottles to kill the yeast to keep them from further fermenting the sugars and making bottle bombs.
Like I said this is my first try at cider so we'll see how it turns out. Wish me luck.
No pictures yet, I'll get some when I get ready to bottle. So far the cider has a nice deep red color, and the name Unicorn Blood is pretty fitting based on color.
But anyway, I found this recipe for Unicorn Blood. It's an apple/cherry cider, and seemed pretty simple. I had never tried making a cider before so I thought let's give it a shot.
the original recipe was for 5 gallons and was 7 parts TreeTop 3 apple blend and 1 part R.W. Knutsen's Just Black Cherry juice, pitched with ale yeast.
So, my only equipment right now is for 1 gallon batches, so I picked up 2 half gallons of tree top and 1 quart of the cherry juice. My brother happened to be going to the brew supply store (he's making a pea pod beer from a 1880s recipe book, but that's a whole different thread) so I tagged along and picked up a vial of yeast.
On Friday (3/17) I mixed up 3 quarts of the apple juice with 1 quart of cherry, so a little heavier on the cherry than the original. In the recipe thread there was lots of talk of adding sugar to get the gravity up and make it a little higher in alcohol, but I measured the gravity of this mix and it was 1.060 already so I didn't feel like I needed to add more. With where I'm planning on taking this it should finish about 6.5% ABV which is plenty for me!
I went ahead an pitched the yeast and put it in the closet to get going. It took about 24 hours to see any activity but then it took off rather actively. Plenty of gunk coming out the blow off tube.
On Monday I switched out the blow off tube for a proper air lock and it's still bubbling away about 3 or 4 bubbles a minute.
I'm planning on a slightly sweet, lightly carbed, bottled cider, so I'm planning on letting this go until the bubble slow to about 1 a minute and then start checking the gravity, with an eye to finish at around 1.010 gravity. At that point I'll add some priming sugar (maybe honey) and bottle, and give it a few days to carb up. Once the carbonization is where I want it, I'll stove top pasteurize the bottles to kill the yeast to keep them from further fermenting the sugars and making bottle bombs.
Like I said this is my first try at cider so we'll see how it turns out. Wish me luck.
No pictures yet, I'll get some when I get ready to bottle. So far the cider has a nice deep red color, and the name Unicorn Blood is pretty fitting based on color.
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