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Discussion => Off topic => Topic started by: sausageandmash1 on March 05, 2012, 04:11 pm

Title: Brewing cider with herb
Post by: sausageandmash1 on March 05, 2012, 04:11 pm
Hello All,
Im going to be brewing some herb (cannabis) cider this year and wanted to know if anybody had tried to do this before and if so have you got any recipes or tips. Im thinking of using oil, now i can buy some here its spurned me on, is this the best thing to use?

Thanks all in advance!

Sausage and mash
Title: Re: Brewing cider with herb
Post by: redforeva on March 05, 2012, 04:41 pm
make a tincture before you bottle, that way you can increase potency that would be lost during the brewing process
Title: Re: Brewing cider with herb
Post by: wowzers on March 05, 2012, 04:50 pm
yeah, I've experimented with using oil in fortified fruit wines but doesn't get incorporated very well, using a vodka tincture of oil seems to work much better.
I've made cider but not with weed so can't really advise on that.
I have made pale ales using trimmings in place of hops though, the two have a very similar aromatics profile and a few bottles get you very messy!  :D

Are you making your cider from a kit or with fresh apples?
Title: Re: Brewing cider with herb
Post by: sausageandmash1 on March 05, 2012, 05:15 pm
Yup i was concerned about that, i don't want a bad tasting mush with an expensive oily sludge on top.
Im using kit to start with then come September / October, harvest time  im going fresh apples all the way. Im not sure if this will work to well with the oil now, and the bud would only be feasible if pressed with the apples. Im thinking the vodka is another way but there isn't much skill in stuffing herb into a bottle, suppose the same could be said for kits....
Thanks for advice so far
Title: Re: Brewing cider with herb
Post by: wowzers on March 05, 2012, 05:30 pm
Focus on making good cider first, then look at ways of enhancing it. Would be a shame to waste good plant material in bad cider.
Having pressed cider apples, I can assure you you'd be wasting your buds if you tried co-pressing them. Unless your doing it on at least a 50kg scale you're better off juicing the apples in a kitchen juicer and fermenting out the juice.
From a taste point of view oil would be pretty horrible, soaking some tasty citrus smelling buds in neutral alcohol would make your cider taste delicious.

Sure there's no skill in stuffing herbs into vodka but the real skill comes in making something drinkable from your apples. It's at least as hard as making beer- when you make cider from apples, the fermentation comes from yeasts on the apple's skins/ the hay in the press. This also incorporates a lot of bacteria and fungi into the juice, if the fermentation doesn't start quick enough you end up with horrible off-notes in the taste or those little snotty bogies of bacteria which you find in rough farmhouse cider.  :-\
 
Title: Re: Brewing cider with herb
Post by: sausageandmash1 on March 05, 2012, 06:49 pm
Thanks again, im  looking forward to the autumn harvest and will let you know how i get on, if its any good i may put some up as samples on SR!