A ~spooky~ Brewday

Yesterday, I brewed my High Tide IPA and bottled a cider that I had been sitting on for a few weeks. Big thanks to my friend Danny for the help and company!

Danny picked me up early in the morning and we went and ran a bunch of errands (mistake), so we didn’t get started brewing until around 4pm, and didn’t finish until even later. While Danny started mashing in, I started bottling my cider. After a month of letting this cider ferment, it tastes good to finally try it!

Unfermented apple juice on the left, my cider on the right.

As you can see, the cider yeast I used actually fermented the juice so much it lightened the color of it. It also made it taste very wine like, as it fermented out most of the sugar so it tastes very dry with a light body. Just sitting in the fermenter for a month with some CO2 in the headspace gave it a little bit of carbonation so it was pretty good to drink. Onto the brew!

I only got a couple pictures but the brewing went well. Still working out some of the kinks as it was my first time doing brew in a bag but it looks good so far. Check back in 2 weeks for some more notes on the IPA!

Collecting mash water.

Mashing in.

Temperature controller bringing my beer down to fermentation temperature.

Bonus: Danny being a goofball while cooling his wort to pitching temps.