What's Brewin' Recipes

December's Holiday Recipe

Christmas is right around the corner, so hopefully you planned ahead and made something a few months ago to drink with the family Christmas morning while the kids open their presents under the tree. What?...You mean to tell me that you don't celebrate Christmas morning with a warm Barley Wine while you empty goodies from your stocking. What kind of a holiday do you expect to have. Remember you can't drink all Christmas Day unless you drink for Christmas breakfast, or preferably before that while the kids are opening their presents around the tree... wee! In all seriousness though, if you haven't already made something, or even better, just bottled something for this Christmas, then you're probably better off just getting something at the liquor store at this point. Which isn't that bad really, there are a lot of really good beers out this time of year and I highly recommend and encourage that you go see what's out there and splurge a little on something new and different. Even if you already have plenty of homebrew, this is one of the best times of year to check out new beers to help give you new style and recipe ideas.

That all being said, this months recipe is not intended to be a holiday recipe in the sense that it will be drank during the holidays (although it's perfectly suitable for that). Rather, a fun and easy holiday activity, to be savored as soon as a couple of months from now, or to be cellared until next holiday season. This is quite possibly one of the easiest methods of making a really good alcoholic beverage, and acquiring a one-gallon glass jug at the same time. " Just what is he talking about?" you ask. Well I'll tell you just what I'm talking about...

Easy As Pie Holiday Cider

Ingredients:

One-gallon Organic Apple Juice
1 lb Honey
1/2 tsp each Ground Cinnamon & Ground Clove
1/2 tsp Yeast Nutrient
1/4 tsp Yeast Energizer
1 packet Lalvin 71B-1122 Narbone Yeast (for a dry finish), or
1 packet Muntons Active Dry Ale Yeast (for a sweet finish)

Method:

This is seriously easy. All you have to do is go to a Wild Oats Market, or some similar health food store, and buy a one-gallon jug of ORGANIC apple juice. It has to be organic because they don't add any preservatives, which would prevent fermentation. Then pour out a pint size glass of the juice and drink it, or pour down the drain, or give it to a neighborhood kid, or something like that, the point here is to reduce some of the volume of the juice to make some room for the honey (which it might be a good idea to put in a sink full of warm water to soften up for easy pouring and mixing). It's a good idea to have some sanitizer solution mixed up while you are doing all of this, if you hadn't already thought of that. Once you've reduced the volume of juice in your jug, you are ready to add all of the other ingredients. It doesn't really matter what order you put things in except you want to add the yeast last. Once you've got everything in the jug, put a sanitized #8 stopper in the opening, put your sanitized thumb over the hole in the stopper, and shake like a paint mixer until you couldn't possibly shake any more... and then shake it some more. Now put your sanitized airlock in the stopper and then wrap the jug with a towel so no light can get in. The main reason for the towel is to collect the mess that will undoubtedly spew out of the airlock within the next couple of days, if you want to avoid this mess then set up a blow off tube instead of the airlock. After a month you'll want to transfer to secondary, which I suggest you siphon the cider into a sanitized bucket temporarily while you clean out the jug, then transfer back into the freshly sanitized jug. You can let it sit in secondary as long as 10 years or so, but if you aren't that patient it will be ready in as soon as two months. I suggest a year to three for optimal flavor. Let sit in bottles for at least two weeks before drinking. The bulk of the aging can be done in the bottles if you don't age it in secondary. Now you have excellent hard cider, and a one-gallon jug that you can use for other ciders, or mead, or experimental batches of beer or wine.

Well that's it for this edition of the What's Brewin' News. All of us here would like to wish all of you and your kin the Happiest of Holidays! Keep those fermenters full, and remember we are what's brewin'!