Backyard Chickens & Bees

The carboy that I set aside for a wild fermentation has finally started, after sitting for about a month (almost to the day!). I’ll probably rack it over quickly, as there was a bit of mold forming. The alcohol should kill that off, but I figure it’s better to be prudent and not get too [...]

In 2010, I made a batch of cider using the “juice apples” available at Kiyokawa Orchard in Parkdale. It was good cider, although a bit bland due to the dryness, mild acidity, and lack of tannins. So I thought I’d make it a bit better with some bottle conditioning to produce a true “sparkling” cider [...]

This coming weekend will be cider-making, round 3. I lent Nat West of Reverend Nat’s Hard Cider my grinder so that he could breeze through several tons of apples for a commercial venture, and in exchange he’s providing me with some apples for another batch of cider. This one will be a blend of 25% [...]

Round two of cider-making took place this past weekend. I learned a lot about buying apples in bulk and what NOT to do! Also, I made use of my new apple grinder from OESCO to replace the garbage disposal one that I had built last year. That was easily one of the best investments I [...]

This is part two of the first chapter in the 2011 cider-making escapades! The last section was more about the new press, the grinder woes, and the HDPE fermenting barrels that I’m using for the larger batches this year. This part will address more of the apples that were used, the yeast strain I pitched [...]

Two Sundays ago (or so, it was on 9/11) was the first day of pressing apples for this year. Of course, it was also about the second hottest day we’ve had in Portland so far (93 °F, or 34 °C if you prefer)! But that didn’t stop us from running 503 lbs of Gravenstein and [...]

Pardon this test post. I’m trying out the Android WP program. Anyways, apple season is coming up, and I have scored my first harvest of crab apples from three of the trees in the parking lot at work! I ended up with about 40 lbs of Dolgo crabs, which are nice and sharp.  These will [...]

Bins of apple scions at the fruit propagation fair. This past weekend, my neighbor Charles and I went to the Home Orchard Society’s fruit propagation fair. It was held at the Clackamas County Fairgrounds in Canby, Oregon. I really wasn’t sure what to expect, being that I’m fairly new to the orcharding scene, and was [...]

Last year, my parents put me in touch with one of the neighbors who rent out a property across the street from their house. The neighbor’s house has a nice, fully-grown apple tree in the front yard that, as far as I know, is an incredibly tasty Gravenstein. That fall I picked about 250 lbs [...]

In early January I pressed some pears with my neighbor Matt and his brother. I ended up with 5 gallons, and decided to try an experiment of making perry with natural fermentation. Before I get into what I mean by natural fermentation—after all, all fermentation is, in a strict sense, natural—I’ll go through what I [...]