BeerBorg

I live near an area of the Sierra foothills called Apple Hill, near Placerville. My home brew club arranged a group purchase of fresh apple juice, fresh off the press as we watched -- over 100 gallons among us even though we're a relatively small club. My plans have been to brew 2.5 gallon batches each of cyber (mead-cider hybrid) and cherry-apple cider, and use the remainder from 5 gallons for what I thought would be a small batch of common cider. After the drought we have had in the west, a sample showed this blend of 7 varieties is sweet and complex. Then my refractometer showed the gravity is 1.068, instead of the typical for apple juice, around 1.05. So after adjusting my planned recipes for my target OG, I got a noticeably larger common cider than expected. I'm looking forward to some tasty results!

Foothiller wrote:...my refractometer showed the gravity is 1.068, instead of the typical for apple juice, around 1.05..

And your first thought wasn't apple jack?

Maybe next year for applejack. I was busy enough yesterday getting these 3 batches into fermenters. (Let's see, which batch do these nutrients go into, and what was in this pot?)