Brewing Hard Cider in my dorm!

Your crazy! If you really love college you probly wouldn't be doing this to get yourself kicked out!

Interesting, let us know how it went.

What is hard cider? (As in, how does it differ to normal cider?)

Tell me when you are at the pornmage step.

Seriously, that is cider brewing terminology.

Quote:

Original post by Witchcraven Tell me when you are at the pornmage step. Seriously, that is cider brewing terminology.

Wow, Gamedev is really broadening my vocabulary this week. First I learn about teledildonics from the front page, and now pornmage :)

Seriously though, an awesome brew kit for dorms is MrBeer. It makes two gallon batches of brew which cost about $7, and the fermenter is the perfect size for stashing in a closet somewhere.

Also, when practicing pornmagic don't forget to cast StoneSkin on your tallywhacker or you will catch a nasty STD.

Have you any idea how much it'll reek while fermenting?, because I do, and I came across nothing that would mask the smell (albeit, it has been a 'while' since I made my own wines and ciders).

Quote:

Original post by benryves What is hard cider? (As in, how does it differ to normal cider?)

Acording to this Wikipedia article in America hard cider is alcoholic cider, while plain old cider is just apple juice (effectively).

I appreciate your concern everyone, but I think it have it sorted out. My airlock is a 20 ounce water bottle filled with water and odor eaters :D. So the vinyl tube leading from my sealed bucket into the 20 ounce bottle. I'm expecting a bit of odor, but we'll keep it all ventilated.

I'm kinda concerned about filtering my finished product. I'm thinking of just using a funnel filled with 3 coffee filters, and that way i can filter out most of the junk like dead yeast and shit. I'm also going to try to make applejack, depending out how the cider turns out.

Other ideas of what to ferment:
Honey,
Various juices,
Sugarwater <- Everclear baby!


And yes, Apple Cider in America is just apple juice. We call the alcoholic stuff hard cider.

Be careful with your final homebrew, if your level of alcohol is too high you could go blind or die.

How are you making this? I only have very little second-hand experience of how poteen (moonshine made from potatoes) is made.

If the simpsons has taught me anything, its that adding antifreeze will enable you to speak french.

That's pretty cool, I'm doing the same thing now (except i'm making vodka).

[Edited by - eal on October 21, 2005 4:22:28 PM]

It will only be like 12% because the yeast can't live in anything higher than that. So i'm not worried about dying. How can i reduce the levels of methanol and fusels in my booze though?

Quote:

Original post by kwijibo Be careful with your final homebrew, if your level of alcohol is too high you could go blind or die.

From this page (which doesn't rank terribly highly on my credibility scale, but whatever):

Quote:

Will home-distilled alcohol make me go blind ? Not if you're carefull. This pervasive question is due to moonshine lore, which abounds with myths of blindness, but few actual documented cases. The concern is due to the presence of methanol (wood alcohol), an optic nerve poison, which can be present in small amounts when fermenting grains or fruits high in pectin.

Apparently since methanol evaporates before ethanol, if you discard the beginning stuff you distill, that will help you get rid of most of it. Although if you're planning on using coffee filters I don't know...

Quote:

Original post by benryves What is hard cider? (As in, how does it differ to normal cider?)

In America I think cider can be served warm, and isn't acholic... it's just an apple juice drink. Far cry from Scrumpy and Strongbow.

Quote:

Original post by krikkit If the simpsons has taught me anything, its that adding antifreeze will enable you to speak french.

And that you can run a complete, full-scale espionage center out of a treehouse

A while back, a friend made hard cider by accident. He bought a two-liter jug of unpasteurized apple juice, put it in his refrigerator, and forgot about it.

We discovered it a few months later and it was great. There was no mold or anything disgusting. It was carbonated and it had a nice little kick (though I don't think the alcohol level was very high).

Apple juice - basic stuff
Apple cider - juice + cinnamon/spices
Sparkling cider - add bubbles
Warm cider - add heat
Hard cider - add alcohol

Quote:

Original post by kwijibo Be careful with your final homebrew, if your level of alcohol is too high you could go blind or die.

Unless you do distillation, the yeast will kill itself once the alcohol is above about 15% (though naturally this varies with how alcohol tolerant the species of yeast is, some can go a bit higher).

Only small quantities of methanol should be produced (due to the presence of pectin in the apples). Most of the pectin is in the peel, so that should be removed to be on the safe side.

However, with ordinary ethanol poisoning it is possible to have a seizure, brain damage, and death.

If you're worried at all about this, I'd suggest just buying an alcoholic beverage from a shop, or if you can't do it yourself, get someone else to do it for you.