It’s been a week since we started the ‘On The Rocks’ cider kit we got in. It stank of bad eggs for the last day or two, however we syphoned it off into a second tank to avoid the sediment and allow us easily add the raspberry & lime flavouring to the appley goodness. We had a little sample at that time and I nearly threw up, it was potent and had a mild throat burning effect. So with a bit of luck secondary fermentation and a few weeks of conditioning will improve it.
The fermentation finished earlier than expected, the result of having a room that is at a constant 23°C. We started off with 24 of the Coopers plastic 500ml bottles, and quickly had to switch to an additional 18 glass bottles. So in total we got 42 pint sized bottles of cider. My only worry is the sediment at the bottom of the bottles, it means they must be stored upright and can’t be shook at all. However it’s a small price to pay for saving over €100 on the leading brand.
So with the Cider finished and both fermentation bins free, I couldn’t resist starting another. So I got my hands on a Coopers ‘Mexican Cerveza’ kit last week, and going by Coopers Aztec Gold recipe it’s said to be fairly similar to Corona so it’ll be an interesting one to try! I hope to bottle it in 330ml bottles, which should result in around 66 bottles for under €20. A fairly substantial saving when compared to the likes of Corona.
So far this whole homebrew thing seems pretty straight forward. I’m only brewing from kits at the moment, it’s easy and pretty hard to mess up. I hope to try all grain brewing sometime before Christmas, and also get around to making a wine sometime in August.
