The Beer Nerd - what are you drinking / brewing thread

Dang man, this post gave me heart palpitations. Every beer looks amazing

 

No sulfer smell or taste? Or rocket fuel alcohol burn?

I was really into making one gallon batches of cider for awhile but the only way I could get a clean enough flavor with champagne yeast was nutrients additions and let it age for months.

Beer yeast on the other hand is much more forgivable and I could get a drinkable cider in a month or so. Still had to add nutrients though.

 

No, it just tastes like a really dry hard cider, no sulfer smell or strong alcohol flavor. I used Red Star Premier Cote Des Blanc yeast. I started both batches on 5/8, transferred the one wihtout brown sugar to secondary on 5/13 and the one with brown sugar on 5/16 (basically when both stopped bubbling). Then, I just threw both batches into the fridge on 5/20 and started drinking them 5/21. On their own, they're very dry and tart and generally not great. I cut them by about 25% with the original apple juice by the glass and it makes a nice drink. I did not carbonate or bottle. I'm just pouring right out of the glass jugs.

 

Dang! That must be some sweet juice. I've used a british ale yeast to ferment mine, and I think even an ale yeast will want to get it down pretty close to 1.0. I stopped it early with some campden and potassium sorbate to keep some residual sweetness in mine, then kegged it with some Starbucks cinnamon Dulce syrup for a nice cinnamon twist. It's cheap and dangerously drinkable.

Recipe here, but I used none of the frozen apple juice concentrate, that must have been just straight diabeetus:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/daves-carmel-apple-cider.244656/

 

Thanks for the recipe! The juice I used is sweet but says no added sugars (I actually bought it off Amazon if you're curious, it's the Martinelli's Apple Juice). I'm brand new to brewing but wanted to try the ale yeast because it seems to have a lower alcohol threshold and I'm thinking it would die off at around 5-6% ABV, depending on the yeast, before the sugars all used up. The champagne yeast I used I believe would have kept on going if I had more sugar to start with.

 

I think a good amount of ale yeasts will pass right by 5-6% if the sugars are simple enough like in apple juice/dextrose. Apple cider is hard to keep sweeter without halting fermentation some how, or back-sweetening with a non-fermentable sugar. Or just add some juice at serving like you did.

 

What I like to do when making cider is to initially ferment 6 gallons of apple juice using a cider or ale yeast and about a week into fermentation I will boil down a gallon of apple juice to a thin syrup on the stove so that there is about a quart or maybe a bit less remaining and add it to the carboy. When boiling the juice down, I'll add a teaspoon or two of DAP so that the sugars invert and becomes less fermentable. I'll add the syrup to the carboy and about a week later do it again with another gallon of juice. Give it another week or two and it's ready to keg. The result is a nice cider with a fair amount of residual sweetness. I think the caramelized sugar adds a bit of depth to the flavor, as well.

Current cider I have on tap: Apple Cinnamon Cider...



To get the cinnamon, I added a full cinnamon stick to the keg and let it age in the basement for a couple months, but didn't really get anything out of it, so I added 30ml (2 TBSP) of this Silver Cloud Estates Cinnamon extract to the keg and that did the trick nicely...

 

That definitely sounds like the method i would expect someone of your caliber to do, i'm just lazy

 

Prairie Artisan Ales Phantasmogoria

 

I’ve never been a big Kölsch guy but what kind of Beer Nerd would I be if I didn’t try it every so often for a gut check.

This one is good in small doses.





Edit: but I still fucking hate a Kölsch. It is ass beer.

 

My cup is a little different lol

 

So far tonight. First two were at a bar on tap. Didn't have a bottle pic so screenshot the Untapped description. Last one is a single picked up at Specs earlier.

 

Well my Hazy turned out OK. Believe I need to pay more attention to the processes and not try to over complicate things. And it's time to get another fridge to address fermenting with better temperature control. Though I heard good things about the Kveik ale yeast that has an optimal range of up to 104 degrees.

 

That’s a gnarly can. Ive heard from more than one person about Tree House Brewery. Once travel restrictions are lifted I have a trip with work to Northborough, MA. I will go to the Tree House.