NEED an Excellent 18th/19th Century Recipe for HARD Cider

[satx78247]

Up in the far Northeast part of the State, we call that the "Peach Quick Step".

Many an unwary "outlander" has learned that "dance" suddenly, after eating way too many of our fresh peaches & plums. ====> CHUCKLE.

Btw, Spanish explorer of the South & Southwest, Avlar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca in 1539 at Mexico City wrote of one of his discoveries in TX, "I found in the river bottoms a tree which hath a purple-fleshed fruit, which is a sovereign remedy for those who can not go. That purple fruit, when dried in the Sun into a shrived, black thing, doeth provide true relief to those who are sick of the belly."
(Chronic constipation was truly a serious health problem in that long-ago era, due to poor diet, sometimes even causing death from bowel obstruction, intestinal abscess & internal hemorrhages. - Therefore, Cabeza de Vaca's discovery of dried fruits or prunes was a "welcome blessing" for many Spaniards.)

yours, satx

 

[Loyalist Dave]

..., and put it in the fridge.

The only problem with that is you end up with lagered cider. When you drop the temp below 50 degrees F, all yeast but lager yeast (a bottom fermenter) stops working, as it's too cold and the yeast goes dormant, but the lager yeast can tolerate the cold, and continues though at a slow rate... which is why long ago when some monks in Germany put up a bunch of barrels of wort (unfermented beer) into a cool cave, and three months later found they had some pretty good, and rather different tasting stuff in those barrels...., and modern beer aka Lager was born :grin:

LD

 

[satx78247]

Have you ever made/drunk any lagered hard fruit cider?
(I've never even heard of "lagered cider".)

How different is it from normal hard cider?
(Enough to bother intentionally making it?)

yours, satx

 

[Rifleman1776]

Methinks the fruit was not the cause of yer two-step dance.
Methinks it was from what was on the fruit from changing hands. :barf:

 

[satx78247]

COULD BE either "hand to mouth contamination" or BOTH "contamination" and "too much fruit".

yours, satx

 

[Grumpa]

Not a problem, since I enjoy lager beer (and don't care a lot for India Pale Ales). And the only pilsner beer I ever cared for was the original Pilsen. But...when I make it again, I will forego the refrigeration.

BTW, some years ago, a bunch of yuppies decided to make some cider...but, instead of picking apples from the tree, they picked them off the ground! Never gave any thought to all the urine and feces and animal saliva that had splashed over them. :barf: They got deathly ill. This spawned a legislative drive to require that all cider be pasteurized. I don't think that would do much for the hard cider fermentation process ('though I don't actually know). But, you can buy unpasteurized cider from many producers.

I do enjoy the English ciders I've tried.

 

[Grumpa]

I'm salivating. I just had to stop for a drink of Moscato. I could taste the fruit in that! :thumbsup:

 

[Grumpa]

I'm salivating. I had to stop and have a drink of Moscato. :thumbsup: Now I could taste the fruit in that! OH! for a truly ripe old peach.

 

[satx78247]

What actually caused their illness MAY have been FUNGUS & MOLD on the fallen fruit, as well as a "general lack of cleanliness" of the hands of the "cider-makers".
(I was taught, long ago in Field Sanitation classes, that MUCH of the totality of "hand to mouth filth diseases" are occasioned by SELF-contamination.)

Fwiw, "fallen fruit" is evidently OK for making cider or fruit wines PROVIDED that the juice is THROUGHLY STERILIZED prior to fermentation AND that the fruit is NOT rotting.

yours, satx

 

[satx78247]

Are we talking about Moscato WINE or BEER or perhaps BOTH?
(I've had NEITHER.)

yours, satx

 

[Karl Helweg]

When we drove through England a while back there were many pubs with signs saying roughly: "Fresh scrumpy, clean bathrooms." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrumpy Some locals explained that drinking so much of this local whole apple hard cider while it was still working to make yourself sick was seasonal manly thing to do.
Not as period as I would like but here is a start: http://homebrewingcaps.com/hard-cider-scrumpy/
Apple Jack (which came out of a still where I used to live) http://www.ehow.com/how_4701397_make-applejack.html
When I lived in Appalachia the old timers talked about making what they called "apple beer" that went back to at least Prohibition. The old fellows would happily pull out their pocket knives and peel mountains of apples for the women folks to make apple butter. They would then make a big show of hauling the apple peels off behind the barn "to feed to the hogs."
Instead they would pack the browned peels into crocks and pour warm water and sometimes molasses or sugar to cover. This ferments with wild yeast with a heavy froth and the nose is as beery and cidery. In some mountainous areas where corn does not grow well they might run this mash through a still otherwise they would just strain it through cloth and let it settle until clear. I might be recalling wrong but one of the Fox Fire books had a story like this too.

 

[Grumpa]

Wine...and it is tasty...white, and fruity, bubbly or not.

 

[Grumpa]

"Scrumpy" is what hard cider is called in Ireland, too. Also "Johnny jump up"!

 

[Loyalist Dave]

Have you ever made/drunk any lagered hard fruit cider?
(I've never even heard of "lagered cider".)

How different is it from normal hard cider?
(Enough to bother intentionally making it?)

Actually, my first venture into home fermentation was with cider that was left inside a fridge, and allowed to ferment... I was 15 I think, and my dad bought a couple of gallons of the stuff, and I then bought an extra gallon each week, replacing the jug in front so the jug in the back would be left alone and would ferment. Yum Yummy!

I had no idea I was lagering cider... and you won't find folks who call it that, but it does have more of a modern "beer" flavor along with the apple flavor than when using an ale yeast. I didn't find out until the 1990's what I was actually accomplishing by using the fridge.

You can use lager yeast at room temp, after you have sterilized the cider, and allowed it to cool, and use several packets. California Common Beer or Steam Beer is lager beer made at room temp in a short amount of time, vs. letting it sit at cold temps for several months.

LD

 

[satx78247]

THANKS for the info.

yours, satx

 

[Karl Helweg]

I see a certain value to these old shared words like scrumpy. They often refer to things that were once too common and well known for anyone to think of writing it down. Still, I would love to find solid documentation too.

 

[Loyalist Dave]

My sincere pleasure..., and again when you get down there... if it goes bad don't dump it as I have to here in the People's Republic of Maryland... distill it instead!

(You can confirm there is a problem with liberty where you live when folks are finding more freedom OUTSIDE of the USA than within. Sorry...off my soapbox for now...)

LD

 

[satx78247]

We are PRIMARILY "retiring abroad" for the following reasons:

1. We want to move to someplace that's WARM but NOT "hot" 12 months a year.
(One of "Duckie's" email correspondents told her that, "A lady may need a light sweater at times here in the Winter to eat out on the terrace".)
2. I can easily find "quality 24/365 professional nursing care" there & at a price that I can afford.
and
3. We can live like "minor royalty" on our military/civilian pensions "down there", which we cannot here.

Note: The following Latin American nations are ACTIVELY recruiting "US military retirees" to "come and stay forever" with a "long menu of attractive inducements" to emigrate: Belize, Columbia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Panama & Uruguay.
(I find it "somewhat amusing" that 5 of the 7 nations have HAD to change their laws to extend the same "inducements" to their own native "Seniors", for reasons of "basic fairness".)
Other nations that are actively SEEKING military pensioners, with "attractive inducements to emigrate" are: Cambodia, Croatia, Indonesia, Ireland, Malaysia, Malta, Philippines, Portugal, Spain, Thailand & (believe it or not) Vietnam.

yours, satx

 

[Preacher Jeremy]

If you drank to much fresh scrumpy, you may have to take a grumpy. :rotf:

 

[satx78247]

AGREED. = I find it to be STUPID to forbid householders from converting excess fruits/grains to liquor for "home uses", given that beer/malt liquor/applejack/win IS lawful to make.

Given that I can LAWFULLY "trade or barter distilled spirits" from my own handwork for "other useful goods for personal consumption", I'd bet that I can find someone who will trade farm produce (and perhaps even some of their EXCELLENT "grass-fat" beef & lamb) for my "excess liquid goods".
(Based on our current use, I suspect that I'll have 300 liters of 180+ proof "distilled goods" to barter. - Cut to 90+ proof that's at least 160 GALLONS.)

A personal note: My beloved "Duckie" has "put in her order" for some home-made fruit vinegars, so that will be a "priority" once we get settled.

yours, satx