# Home brewing and making cider



## cdcolburn (Jan 4, 2010)

Finally after years of talking about making wine and beer, tonight I started my first batch of cider (seemed easier to make). I fully expect to ruin the first batch but am excited to see how it goes. Meanwhile I'm doing the [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPRG7W7qQF0"]alcohol dance with the Kinks[/ame] (*warning: explicit lyrics*) while my batch ferments and I'm calling it Salish Sea Sider


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

Those look yummy! WE made beer first, hows that for funny? It was easier for us as we have not found a cider press. A friend came over and supervised us until my hubby and he needed me to step in for the finish...they were getting too "happy" drinking beer while making beer! I am toying with the idea of getting plans to make a cider press. They can be quite pricey. I have such a big source of many different apple variaties here. Let us know how it turns out! My pantry is so full of applesauce...may last over a year this time!


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## cdcolburn (Jan 4, 2010)

For this first and experimental batch I used "Western Family" from concentrate and will probably do a few batches using store bought apple juice until a get it right. I also got some wine yeast for fermenting. 

Fortunately for me though I live on an island where apples were the main crop more than a hundred years ago and many of the tree are still standing and producing fruit. In fact the house I live in used to be the cider house of a very large apple orchard. I also have access to a large press and so am planing on making my own cider from scratch in the fall. I figure by fall I will have learned enough to use the natural wild yeast to ferment and be able to make my own for free.

BTW I can hear the locks on my first batch bubbling!


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

I love that word....FREE I make my organic applesauce loaded with cinnamon from several different apples from the island I live on.....every year FREE! I make my blackberry juices, jams, other berry juices all kinds of stuff FREE. Are you living on Whidbey? I live on Hat Island, I see Camano Island and Langley from my home.....I would love pics from your island? A sunset from my back yard is with my signature. Even the wood in my woodstove has been FREE for years. The logs on the beaches are going to get a clean up crew this year....instead of just salvaging trees that have fallen.....we can also get all the wood we want that the tugs pulling the wood floats....lose huge long logs of really good firewood....that deposit on the beaches that also float back out and are dangerous to boaters....


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## cdcolburn (Jan 4, 2010)

I grew up sailing between Seattle and the San Juans, spending loads of time catching the warm air currents in the convergence zone between Mukilteo and Everett and I know Hat Island very well. Was even a junior Everett Yacht Club member back in the mid 1980s. I lived on Whidbey on Penn Cover for a couple of years in the mid 1990s but after several years of school and living between AZ and NY I've come back to the PNW and now live on Orcas Island in the San Juan Archipelago. I know what you mean about sunsets and though I've seen spectacular sunsets and sunrises in Thailand, Arizona, NY, and many other places in my travels, I've still yet to see one that beats any in Western Washington.

Here is one of the first pictures I took after moving to Orcas (looking north west towards Waldron Island, WA and Saturna Island, Canada):









I took that shot from the front lawn of the first place we lived (cabin on the left):










Since then, we live on the same property but away from the water :-( We still get great sunsets and rises never-the-less: 









It makes everything glow:


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## romysbaskets (Aug 29, 2009)

How beautiful! I have to get a few pics of our modest home to send you after I put them on photo bucket...have to get that off hubby's computer. As for the sunset pics....how incredible! You must love the show every night? We can't help ourselves...the oooing and awwing never changes. Each one has it's subtle and not so subtle differences! Isn't island life wonderful? I just love your pictures! After we had to sacrifice our classic wooden boat...we now own a transportation boat....22 foot fiberglass power boat, deep hulled. The waters between Everett and here get pretty bad sometimes....we homeschool our kids...the two that are at home...have a grandson too. Our daughters are older, on their own....


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## cdcolburn (Jan 4, 2010)

The sunsets I grew up with were awesome and though we couldn't see the water from our house when I was a kid, all I had to do was to climb to the top of Rucker Hill and I could see them hovering there, right over Port Gardner, Hat Island, and Whidbey. My mother would always call me to hurry into the kitchen to see the colours before they faded. Of course though, as a kid, I took the turning world for granted but now as an adult, those seeds my mum planted cultivated into dumbstruck amazement when ever I see those waves of purple, pink, yellow, orange, and blues.


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## Wisconsin Ann (Feb 27, 2007)

OOOOOOOOOOOOoooo.  how beaUUUUTiful. I lived on Whidbey for a short time, and then over on East of Seattle outside of Issaquah. The photos are lovely. 

the cider tho....how long do you think you'll have it working? (I need to plan my trip so that I arrive at your doorstep in time to taste it  ) We've made wine and mead, but I've never tried cider...don't know why not, it's SOOOOO good!


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## Guest (Feb 9, 2010)

Don't worry about "ruining" your cider. Ruined apple cider is still apple cider vinegar. Great for fruit pickles.


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## cdcolburn (Jan 4, 2010)

Thanks for the comments! My first batch is mellowing in the cellar and since then, I've hit overdrive and have bought some equipment including a couple of five gallon carboys. Am now working on a new batch using real apple juice as opposed to concentrate for the first batch. I hope by summer I'll have six or more carboys ready for the autumn cider fest

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l80BvWamvbY"]Here's a video of the new batch[/ame]


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