The apple tree in the garden has given us a bumper crop. It would be a considerably more bumper crop were it not for the efforts of the codling moth, but that's another story. I can't eat apples raw because of oral allergy syndrome, and there's only so much stewed apple one can eat, particularly if keeping the carbs relatively low. I made a batch of pickled apple, and loads I've given away, and I've even experimented with apple sauce as a hair wash (pretty successful, actually).
Even so, a lot still manage to end up like this:
Bramleys should in theory be good keepers, but not when they've been punctured by codling caterpillars. But then I thought, why not try fermenting them into cider?
I juiced the apples. There is a juicer attachment on my blender, but rather than figure out the instructions I just chopped the apples and pulped them in the blender, then strained through muslin. Quite possibly they'd have started fermenting on their own, but I added some water kefir starter (not the grains, just some of the sugar water the grains had been sitting in). More or less
the same process as water kefir - a few days in a big jar, then bottled. You could drink it at any stage, but the longer it ferments the less sweet it will be - and the more alcoholic, probably.
Now, I've never been a huge cider drinker. Most of what you get in pubs, etc, is dismal apple-flavoured alco-pop, but a real, traditional, artisan cider is a completely different article. Just like with beer, actually, though it's harder to find a good artisan cider than it is a comparable beer. Beer is one thing I do definitely miss, but at least that's had the side effect of forcing me to seek out decent ciders.
Anyway, back to the homebrew. Traditional cider apples are a lot sharper than regular apples, but even so the bramley brew comes out surprisingly good. Plenty of flavour, though perhaps a little on the sweet side. I haven't a clue how alcoholic it is, but I'd guess it's definitely more so than water kefir.
So, a definite success. But - and it's a big but -
for christ's sake don't use glass bottles. I've never yet had an explosion with fermented beverages, but earlier today I heard a loud, splintering crash from the kitchen. I dashed down, expecting to see crockery in pieces on the floor, and was greeted by a spreading pool of fermenting apple juice and numerous deadly shards from a former EZ-cap beer bottle. The first thing I thought was 'cool, an exploding bottle'. The second thing was, 'what if someone had been standing in front of it when it went off?' My blood actually ran cold.
So. Plastic bottles only from now on. Plastic isn't ideal for food storage, obviously, but it beats a shard of glass in the eye, or in the jugular. Alternatively, let it do the cask-conditioning stage (second fermentation) in a covered jug, or don't tightly seal the bottles - it'll still probably have a little carbonation. The issue is, I think, that with water kefir I always follow more or less the same recipe, so there's a known quantity of sugar. IE, there's only so much fermentation that can happen in the bottle because there's only so much sugar in there to ferment. Fruit juice is more of an unknown quantity. There was far more sugar in there, so the fermentation went crazy, creating more pressure than a beer bottle was designed to withstand.
Squash is great for making deserts. It's rich and sweet while being still relatively low on the carbs, and besides richness and sweetness it provides texture and moistness to a cake or pudding. I've used it as a base for all sorts of things, from brownies to Christmas pudding. I've never actually gone the whole hog and made a pumpkin pie with it, though, and with this being squash season, I suddenly thought I'd give it a go.
