Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Home Brewing
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Cider and Wine
My uncle lives on a harbor in Florida and his backyard space is smaller than many of the driveways
in my city area. But his beehives provide him honey from which he is able to brew homemade
mead in both dry and sweet recipes.
It was summer, and my family was traveling to Florida for a visit. The trip fell on my twenty-first
birthday and I remember toasting the occasion with homemade brew. As I held my glass and
heard words of blessing and celebration spoken over me, I felt so special and grown up. I was being
toasted by my family with something that had been carefully created with care, time, and love.
Home brewing techniques rely on fermentation, which is a way of preserving. It preserves fruit
by converting the sugars and carbohydrates into alcohol. All of the basic recipes follow the same
general template: fruit juice is mixed with sugar and yeast, and allowed to ferment. Then the wine
ages and is strained, bottled, and enjoyed.
Brewing Homemade Cider
Hard cider, which is cider with alcoholic properties, should be made from a mix of apple varieties.
Soft cider or sweet cider is the fresh-pressed juices of the apples; hard cider is what results after
the fermentation. Cider is different from apple juice in that, among other things, it isn't filtered so
apple particulates are still present.
It has been said that cider making is one of the best historic ways of preserving the food value
of apples over the winter. While many apples will store well in cool cellars for weeks into winter,
you can't store any that are bruised. So pressing them into cider is the perfect storage solution. It's
definitely one great way to use extra apples from your home orchard while the harvest is good.
Over the Garden Fence
If you don't have an overabundance of apples for yourself, you might be able to pick up windfalls from
a neighbor's apple tree (ask first, of course!). Pick-your-own orchards are also good places for you to find
locally grown apples at an inexpensive price.
