New homebrew, September 2018

The newest cider, Sep 2018

After a full year in the jugs, 2017's cider finally got bottled up.  I used our entire collection of bottles (some new, some seen lots of use) and filled up the drinks cupboard.  We've pretty much finished off all our homebrew by now, so it's good to restock.  The cider's not extremely potent, but fruity and refreshing.  I think one of the five jugs actually turned to vinegar by accident, but that's ok--cider vinegar is useful too.

The son and I went to our country park and picked two sacks of apples from various wild trees we know.  We juiced them in our electric juicer to fill up two new jugs for cider.  It's a big job, juicing up 8 L of apple juice all at once!  I put about half the pulp into some big plastic tubs, topped them up with water, and let them ferment too--for vinegar.  Once they stopped bubbling, after a week or two, I strained out the pulp and have been stirring the liquid once a day to help the process along.

Elderberries and blackberries to brew, Sep 2018

The son and I also took two weekends in August to collect almost a full kilo of wild blackberries, again in the local country park.  We found a spot with some big juicy berries, very sweet.  We froze these, to wait until the elderberries ripened earlier this month.  When ready, I picked elderberries from two trees/bushes on the margins of our property and combined them with the blackberries, some sugar and yeast to start wine.  I made some in 2017 and we agreed it was much nicer than plain elderberry wine--and more potent than the apple cider.  I hope this new batch lives up to our expectations.

That's three out of five demi-johns in use now.  What to do with the last two?  I hope to pick another two sacks of apples, though we'll have to go slightly farther afield than our own country park now.