Homecoming weekend

No tailgating for us this weekend. Instead, dehydrating habaneros and jalapenos…and pitching yeast for two 5 gallon batches of cider:

• Applecart Orchard (locally produced) with Wyeast 4766 Cider strain;
• Musselman’s “Premium, not from concentrate” (produced who knows where?) with White Labs WLP775 English Cider

Note how the filtration process (intended to improve appearance and shelf-life, I suppose) has removed particulates from the Musselman’s juice. The local juice appears lighter in color–but, in reality, the Musselman’s juice is simply much less turbid. It will be interesting to see how this treatment impacts the flavor of the finished product. In retrospect, I wish I would have controlled this experiment by using the same yeast for both batches.

If you’re interested in the impact of various yeast strains, see this post for more on the topic:

http://forum.northernbrewer.com/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=64821&hilit=experiment#p596948

This guy has WAY too much time on his hands…