How in the name of Jaysus are ya?
Happy (almost) St. Patrick’s Day! Got any wild plans? Or are you like me and don’t, and will have to think of something exciting on the fly, like eat a potato and have some whiskey? I’m hoping this will be the last year I don’t have plans though. I have this tab up on my computer, for a few years now, (I’m a terrible tab person and like to collect many windows with many tabs that aren’t good enough to save but I can’t bear to close) and it has ideas for decorating drinks for St. Patrick’s Day. When we have a cider shop, I want to put little plastic green hats on all our mugs of cider, or make the cider green, or have a little animatronic leprechaun run around the shop, ridiculous stuff like that to amaze and annoy our customers.
Wouldn’t it be fun, to get a cider mug with a rainbow candy braced in it? I don’t know about the whip cream though, probably make the cider gross. All well, what are you gonna do? You have to.
New Cider (still at home)
We were testing all kinds of stuff with this batch. A month ago we met with The Facilitator (my name for the cider guy that we’re going to use his facility and equipment to make licensed, sell-able, cider) and he said it would be a lot easier if we made a completely dry cider. That way we could make a small batch in a plastic bucket (still plenty big, 30 gallons, but not the 500 gallons we’d be making in a jacketed fermentor), and not need to worry about the cider re-fermenting. If it’s totally sugarless we won’t have to filter it or pasteurize it, and it won’t need to be refrigerated. That would be so much easier, that means keg it or bottled it, and we wouldn’t need to find cold storage. In case you don’t know and are interested, even filtered product is usually kept in a cold room, it’s just too easy for some yeast to slip through, turn the extra sugar into alcohol and CO2, and break the bottle or at least make the cider’s taste change. If it’s kept at fridge temp, like 36-40 degrees, yeast won’t really do much. And a keg has a pressure release valve if anything does change. If we want to bottle stuff up to sell, it’d be nice to not worry about keeping the bottles cold or them blowing up.
We haven’t made a completely dry cider in a long time, and I’ve definitely never done one flavored with tea. Until very recently, I always added it right before pasteurizing. After 3 min at 151 degrees, when the cider was done pasteurizing, I pulled the tea bags out. Then, for our filtered cider, I added the tea to the apple juice that was going to be added to the fermented product, heated it up, and had a concentrate. So this time, I was going to have to make a cold brew tea. I first tried it out on some dry cider I bought at Chuck’s Hop Shop. Divided the bottle into three jars, one as a control, and two with tea bags, one I removed the tea at 12 hours and the other at 24. I wanted to test this out because I was really afraid that we’d get some bitter flavors if I waited too long. It totally worked! I was ready to try it on the cider we’d been making.
Unfortunately, this batch of cider was pretty stubborn. We hadn’t been able to find any fresh pressed apple juice for this batch and so we used organic shelf stable apple juice. I had been excited, they tasted great and I couldn’t remember why we stopped using shelf stable before. Turns out, the yeast doesn’t like to drop out of it, and everything stays really cloudy and tastes yeasty. We forgot about that. So for the first time ever we used biofine, an ingredient you can use to bind things together so they get heavy and drop down. It took a few days, and we’re still not sure the cider turned out as good as it could have.
I choose to use Earl Grey in one and coconut tea in the other because both of those we have versions of in our fridge that we really like so they’d be easily comparable. I used the same amount of tea I did previously, and we were pretty hopeful it’d all taste similar to our usual because it’s very much on the dry side anyway, only one part juice to 9 parts cider.
It turns out that one part apple juice makes a big difference. I used too much tea too. We bottled it all up, and as usual, that night I hated it. For the first time though, Chris hated it too. We talked about dumping it all, saving the time I take to label and save the glass bottles. I said my newsletter photo was going to be me pouring it down the drain.
We tried it again the next evening, and we like it! Honestly, such haters at bottling time. I still think it’s not that great, and I’m never going to make something this quality and sell it. But, it’s not bad. Maybe if you’re already having something sweet and want to mix things up? Maybe mixed with that sticky brown sugar bourbon that’s pushed at all the festivals?
We’re running out of brewing time before it’s too warm in our apartment to keep the fermenting temperature of 60, but we’re going to hurry up and try one more batch. I think if we start with better juice, use less tea, and pick a fruitier or sweeter tea, this could work. It’s worth another try.
Cider Business Expertise
Just last week we signed a statement of work and wrote a big check to have some specific cider business guidance. This was harder than you’d think. Our new mentor (The Facilitator) is involved in all kinds of projects. He’s on all kinds of panels and boards, every time we see him we find out what else he’s involved in. I’m a little concerned that getting the time we’re paying for is going to be a challenge. But, he’s very friendly and extremely knowledgeable about cider and business. My hope is that, even if we don’t technically get the four hours a week we signed up for, that he’ll be able to fill the gaps so we can get a business going anyway. He’s a business lawyer, so I’ve already asked him plenty of questions, like, “was that thing, one cider business did, really legal”? and other things like, “well, is THAT legal?” and he always knows. Right off the top of his head. And, he LOVES talking cider processes and ingredients. For instance, if we want a cider that is sweet but shelf stable, there are fruits like pears, that have non-fermentable sugars, so we can try that.
Advantages to Our New Contract
He mentioned looking into what festivals we might want to have a table at (that would be so fun!)
Great apprenticeship opportunity - I asked if we could help him make his ciders so that we can have experience with the big equipment, and he said of course, lets do that. (Honk! Honk! Hell yeah! Looks who’s driving the big rig)
Business plan review - he’s going to go over everything (cross your fingers for me he doesn’t ask for all my spreadsheets! They’re such a mess, some are a decade old, and I liked to edit and update all over them in different colors, it’s an embarrassment)
Alternative business options - I’m wondering if we won’t be able to get the plan funded as is, it’s really a very ambitious and high-priced whooper of a ciderhouse. He’s seen all different ways to get going so if he needs to, he’ll help me shrink it down into something more quickly fundable
Getting funding - he’ll help us prepare what we need to ask for investment
Location and leases - eventually, he’ll help us find a facility and look over the lease
Challenges
It doesn’t sound like we can make our own batch of cider until September! It’s just too warm to ferment in a bucket now. The yeast need a cold (not freezing) environment, and to ferment in something that isn’t jacketed in glycol, is a problem in the spring and summer. But waiting until September?! We just wrote a check and signed a document for the year and to wait through half of it? In the meantime we’ll do business planning stuff, and we can help him with his cider, but damn. It is confusing though, cause all the festivals are early September so how do we have product to sell there if we’re just starting to make at that time? Why would he suggest these things? There’s probably a way around this. We’re going to look for small jacketed fermentors and see if we can buy one and hook it up at his place.
Waiting until September to make our cider
Overall, this is an amazing opportunity. If I were an investor, I’d be concerned that we don’t have experience with big equipment or a knowledgeable mentor to help guide us through the start-up process. Now we’ll have it.
That’s all for this edition of the newsletter! This project has been a doozy, but we have a plan and have kind of reached the limit of what we can do at home, without going to jail. Thank you for continuing to follow along with us. It means a lot to us and we appreciate it. Thank you.
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