Museum • Homebrew • Mead And Cider
This is even simpler than beer from extract. The ingredients are honey and yeast. There's also so priming sugar in case I want to carbonate it. There is also some yeast nutrient to make up for some stuff that the yeast needs that is naturally occurring in grain and fruit but lacking in honey.
This is the highest starting gravity I've seen since I started brewing. The hydrometer reads 1.082, but since the must is currently about 84° F you have to add three points to that, making the starting gravity 1.085. Since meads often ferment down to 1.000 or lower the mead could end up around 11% ABV.
I was surprised at how low the gravity is already. That's right - looks like 1.000. The temperature is about 73° F, so it's actually 1.001. This is much lower than any beer I've made finished.
To make the cider unique I really wanted to work with local ingredients. I found a local orchard and purchased five gallons of cider, and some "Keepsake" variety apples while I was there.
This cider is exposed to UV light to kill off bacteria, but that shouldn't kill off the natural local yeast. When I bought the cider I didn't have an empty fermenter - so the cider sat for almost a week. I probably should have put it in the refrigerator, but for some reason I just left it in the living room. Before transferring to the fermenter I could see a little foam inside the jugs, showing that the cider had already started to ferment.
To keep with the "farmhouse" tradition I let this cider ferment on its own natural yeast. The fermentation is not as vigorous as a beer fermentation. It takes a lot longer, and doesn't build up as high of a krausen.
This example is still (uncarbonated). I also carbonated some which turned out very well. It had an almost champagne-like quality.