I'm pretty sure I've never mentioned that I'm a home brewer on AF.
Tonight was the night to transfer my latest creation (an English-style brown ale) from the fermenter to the keg. While I'm absentmindedly monitoring the process, I notice that I have two jugs of apple juice sitting on the kitchen counter and start to daydream about the virtues of hard cider.
Now, I've got a batch of dry cider (more like an apple wine) going at the moment, but it's not going to be ready to package for a few weeks, and not ready for drinking for a couple of months. Woe is me.
If only there was a way to get a small, quick batch of cider ready to drink.... I'd be a happy Great Old One.
Alas, I have no yeast handy, and the beer and wine supply shop is closed. It seems that it is not to be.
But wait - at the bottom of my fermenter is the answer to my salvation! As the yeast does it's thing and converts fermentable sugars to alcohol, it drops out of suspension and collects at the bottom of the container, dormant and waiting for more sugars to consume. Home brewers will sometimes throw a second batch on top of the dregs of the first for a quick start to the fermentation process.
But to start a cider on top of the dregs of a batch of ale? Insanity! Nobody would EVER do that. It's mad, I tell you.
So I do what any desperate mad hobo scientist might do, and drained as much of the ale dregs as I could, and poured the apple juice on top of the sediment, capped the fermenter and put an airlock on it.
Less than 30 minutes later, the first bubbles come through the lock, indicating that fermentation has begun in earnest. Usually it takes a few hours, sometimes as long as two days.
I don't expect this insane experiment to end well. Come tasting time, people will probably die (*). Even worse - I may produce a beverage so foul that I needs to be dumped, and all that precious fermentable sugar may go to waste, without anyone enjoying the intoxicating benefits of cidery drunkenness. I expect it to taste bad, and smell worse. It may very well be the worst excuse for an alcoholic beverage produced in written history. Then again, I'm sure people have probably sought the heavenly embrace of intoxication with far, far worse swill that we can possibly imagine.
But hey, that's why we do experiments, and it's all in the name of MAD HOBO SCIENCE.
(*) In case you're wondering, this is a bit of hyperbole. There aren't any pathogens capable of living or reproducing within cider or beer that can kill you.
P.S. If you don't hear from me after 4 or 5 days have elapsed from now, you'll at least know why.
Tonight was the night to transfer my latest creation (an English-style brown ale) from the fermenter to the keg. While I'm absentmindedly monitoring the process, I notice that I have two jugs of apple juice sitting on the kitchen counter and start to daydream about the virtues of hard cider.
Now, I've got a batch of dry cider (more like an apple wine) going at the moment, but it's not going to be ready to package for a few weeks, and not ready for drinking for a couple of months. Woe is me.
If only there was a way to get a small, quick batch of cider ready to drink.... I'd be a happy Great Old One.
Alas, I have no yeast handy, and the beer and wine supply shop is closed. It seems that it is not to be.
But wait - at the bottom of my fermenter is the answer to my salvation! As the yeast does it's thing and converts fermentable sugars to alcohol, it drops out of suspension and collects at the bottom of the container, dormant and waiting for more sugars to consume. Home brewers will sometimes throw a second batch on top of the dregs of the first for a quick start to the fermentation process.
But to start a cider on top of the dregs of a batch of ale? Insanity! Nobody would EVER do that. It's mad, I tell you.
So I do what any desperate mad hobo scientist might do, and drained as much of the ale dregs as I could, and poured the apple juice on top of the sediment, capped the fermenter and put an airlock on it.
Less than 30 minutes later, the first bubbles come through the lock, indicating that fermentation has begun in earnest. Usually it takes a few hours, sometimes as long as two days.
I don't expect this insane experiment to end well. Come tasting time, people will probably die (*). Even worse - I may produce a beverage so foul that I needs to be dumped, and all that precious fermentable sugar may go to waste, without anyone enjoying the intoxicating benefits of cidery drunkenness. I expect it to taste bad, and smell worse. It may very well be the worst excuse for an alcoholic beverage produced in written history. Then again, I'm sure people have probably sought the heavenly embrace of intoxication with far, far worse swill that we can possibly imagine.
But hey, that's why we do experiments, and it's all in the name of MAD HOBO SCIENCE.
(*) In case you're wondering, this is a bit of hyperbole. There aren't any pathogens capable of living or reproducing within cider or beer that can kill you.
P.S. If you don't hear from me after 4 or 5 days have elapsed from now, you'll at least know why.
