GingerBastard
From Simreal
Contents |
Ginger Bastard Cider
Spring 2008
My favorite ciders continue to be ginger based... and this is the latest in the series, and my favorite.
Note about the naming, I had originally made two ginger ciders, one very sharp (this one) and one that turned out to be rather bland. I had meant to name the sharp cider Ginger Bastard and the mild one Mr. Blue Cider (since "Blue" is a nickname for red-headed people, also known as ginger). But, at their Flipside debut, I labeled them backwards!
So, if you remember the blue-labeled sharp, dry ginger cider, that is actually this one. Or something. Yeah.
Makes 3 gallons (small carboy).
| Qty | Ingredient |
|---|---|
| 2 gal | Central Market Organics unfiltered apple juice |
| 1 gal | Tree Top 100% apple juice |
| 1 lb | White granulated cane sugar |
| 10+ oz | GRATED (not cubed, but shredded) fresh ginger |
| 1 pkg | White Labs WLP775 English Cider yeast |
Dissolve the sugar in 16 ounces of hot (boiling) water and the combine all of the juices and sugar into a big plastic tub, check temperature, and pitch the yeast in. My notes indicate the plain juice was about 1.045 pumped up a bit further with the added sugar.. but I'm not sure I believe that.
Ferment for a while (about a week), move to the secondary, ferment more (maybe a month), you know the drill (and if you don't it's easy! Lots of books on the subject). On the move to secondary, I believe I left most of the ginger shreds behind.
On bottling, I believe I used about 4 ounces of cane sugar to prime the 3 gallons.
For the ginger beverages, a long dwell time in the bottle (up to three months) helps bring the ginger flavor forward.
Very very nice cider.
Winter 2008
Made the recipe again with excellent olfactory results during brewing, love the smell of cider as it bubbles away. Moved it into a 5 gallon Cornelius keg instead of bottling, after flushing with CO2 to prevent annoying oxygen interactions. I carbonated to 20psi on the second day in the keg, after everything had chilled to 50ºF.
Tapping the keg a few days later again, all of the CO2 fizzes out! The cider is almost entirely flat -- need to research that. Annoying. The ginger flavor hasn't had time to emerge, and I don't know that if will in the cooler (the bottles matured in my closet at a warmer temp). Also, no priming sugar, and the cider itself is rather a bit dryer (I think).
Need to add more sugar up front to try to sweeten it a tad, and maybe add more ginger? I don't know if I have the patience to let it sit in the keg that long before drinking. Brewing is not the best hobby for the impatient!
Update: Fully depressing the lever on the keg dispenser reduces the fizzing and helps the cider keep some CO2 in. Partially depressing the level foams the heck out of the cider.
Update 2: De-fizzed some of this batch by setting a splash of it in the 'fridge overnight, so I could Vinometer it... giving me a reading of about 5%. Maybe later I'll check its gravity.
January 2009
Since the Winter '08 version was a bit more dry and a bit less gingery than I liked, I updated the recipe to 15 ounces of finely food processed ginger (which I soaked in a couple of cups of warm-to-hot apple cider to extract flavor), plus an additional pound of light brown sugar (making two pounds of sugar added).
A slow start to the fermentation (but it is also a bit cold out these days).
Starting gravity at about 1.030, which seems really low given my notes above. I'm just breezing through the measurements so I suppose I'm doing something funny. Ugh.
