Busy brewing day: Cider and Irish Stout

The Wonderful World of Apples
I was in luck this morning – the Braeburn cider people were there! Pre-fermentation, the Braeburn cider is crisp and tart and delicious to drink. This will be my first single-variety cider, as all previous batches were from a hodge podge of apple varieties. It’ll be interesting to see what the difference is between this cider and the one I’ve got conditioning in bottles right now. I’ve also made this one sulfite-free, and used local honey and cider yeast. I expect that it’ll be semi-dry and very appley.

And since I’m making cider, that means I have to drink some of last fall’s cider. This was made with previously frozen gallons of unpasteurized local apple cider, campden tablets, and cider yeast. Initially, it was very sweet. Then it became unbelievably carbonated and gushed out of the bottle. Now that it’s a year old, the carbonation has calmed down and the sweetness has reduced. It’s more of a semi-dry cider now.

Irish Stout with a local twist
Each year, I make a batch of Irish Stout for my friend’s St. Patrick’s Day party, which means I barely get any of the stout myself because all the party people drink it up. So I got wise and I’m making myself an early batch. I’m using the Toad Spit Stout recipe like last time, but I’m using Chinook and Willammette hops. I’ve also replaced the crystal malt with a rye crystal malt, and added organic roasted barley.

The best part is that I think I just unearthed a bottle of last year’s stout, so I’ll be able to compare the differences!