Summer Batches

Well last weekend I spent at home and I've been looking to make a few drinks ready for the summer as there's nothing quite like a hot weekend in the sun lying back after a long week with a drink in your hand. I knew with the resources I have left that I could comfortably make 3 one gallon batches of various flavours. I decided that as I've not tried a cyser yet that this would be a good opportunity. Cider is a great summer drink with a load of ice so why not try a cyser. Gallon 2 would be a more citrusy brew. After wandering around the local fruit shops I settled with orange, pink grapefruit and ginger for this brew. Lastly I let my brother decide on gallon 3 coming up with the idea of raspberry and chili.

I began by brewing up the cyser. This is one that I would definitely repeat again and do slightly differently as I completely forgot when I was doing it that apple juice has sugar in it! As such I ended up mixing together 6 jars of honey and 4 liters of apple juice yielding an original gravity of 1.120... waaaaayyyy too high than what would have been more suitable especially considering I was aiming for a light refreshing drink at around 6%... It's just going to be really really sweet instead! The yeast and extra additions I shall describe at the end.

Secondly I got the capsicumel brewed. This one I asked my brother what he would prefer in terms of a flavour profile. He wanted a subtle chili flavour with most of the focus being about the raspberry. I added my usual amount of honey with 4 liters of water and mixed the lot together. Adding to this I used 10 tablespoons of raspberry syrup and 1 whole chili (I've forgotten the type but it was a just a standard one, nothing in league with Naga). On sampling the first flavour to get you was the chili which was then overwhelmed by the flavour of raspberry on the aftertaste. If this remains the same after fermentation I'll be very happy! The OG for this batch was 1.110.

Lastly is the citrus mead. I cut up 4 mandarin oranges, 1 pink grapefruit and a small stem of root ginger (approximately 50-100g) sliced fine. originally I added about a 3rd of the ginger and then ended up just adding the whole piece I bought as I felt it needed more. When I topped it up I added 3.5 liters of water and half a liter of orange juice. Everything went into the demijohn to make sure the flavour potential is maximised. The OG for this batch was 1.110

Once all three had been added to their demijohns and they had all cooled down to an acceptable temperature, I added 1 teaspoon of nutrient to all three and 1 teaspoon of pectolase to the cyser. For the yeast, I found a cider yeast at the local shops and used this for all three rather than opening up multiple sachets.

All three have begun to ferment now with the citrus batch fermenting the strongest. Once these have finished I will be looking at starting a few other non-mead batches... criminal really for a mead blog but I wanted to try something completely different. I was bought a chardonnay kit almost a year ago now so I think it's about time I started that one. I've also been wanting to try an elderflower wine too. If both of these are on the cards it looks like summer time should be a very relaxed one this year!