Valentine's Day: I'm single so making hard cider seems logical ...

I escaped the East Coast just in time to beat the real winter weather after working through Hurricane Sandy – which was worse than Irene the year before. Making my way to Texas, it was time to buy a new truck.  My old F-150 Lariat had served me well; over 250,000 miles and had been to every state except Hawaii and Alaska.  I picked up my new F-150 on New Year’s Eve and proceeded to put 10,000 miles on it on my journey back to Washington.

I had to be back in Spokane to complete a restaurant review of Central Food, a new restaurant in the Kendall Yards area - look for the article in the March 2013 Spokane Coeur d'Alene Living, and find a place to live, but it was also a good time to do a little “vinting” – no not venting, I’m talking about making some hard cider (see Hard Cider: Bringing back an American Tradition).  Happily, Gary was ready to make a few experimental batches in his basement; after all I am still homeless.

I used a good quality “whole” juice product from Washington for this batch.  I added some pears, seeds removed, and crushed.  For my yeast I went with Champagne style to soften the end product.  Everything was combined in a fermentor, I pitched the yeast, and crossed my fingers.

14 days later, the airlock stopped bubbling and it appeared that yeast had done their work – converting the sugar to alcohol.  I took a hygrometer reading of the finished product and estimated that alcohol content to by around 7.5% - fairly high for a cider; however, I fermented it dry, meaning that I let the yeast convert all of the sugar to alcohol and leaving almost no residual sugar.

I ran the finished cider through a coffee filter and bottled it in my Groslch bottles.  The finished product is a crisp, slightly acidic, but clean cider. The nose was all apples and the palate matched. For my next batch, I need to do a little more research on varietals and seek some guidance, for that I will be heading to Mount Vernon, Washington where the University’s cider apple research facility is located. For now, I have some great cider to share.