Competing Against Myself

[Foothiller]

A separate post ("First Time's The Charm") was about my Fruit Melomel mead winning a combined category with Fruit Beers, Spiced Beers, and Ciders at the El Dorado County Fair, with entries from around Northern California. I don't have my score sheets to see how my beer entries did, against what I know as a judge was tough competition in their categories. But with the full list of placings out now, it turns out I also placed second in that same category as my winning mead, with my Cherry-Apple Cider.

The recipe uses 1 gallon of apple juice and 1 quart of black cherry juice from Whole Foods Market (100% apple and cherry juice, pasteurized, no preservatives), 0.5 lb of wheat DME to get at least a slight head and some residual sweetness, 1 lb of local wildflower honey, 1 tsp of pumpkin pie spice mix, 1 tsp of pectic enzyme, 1/2 tsp of grape tannin, yeast nutrient, and Safale US-05 ale yeast to leave some residual sweetness. I heated the apple juice to 170 F (no more, to prevent pectin from forming haze) while dissolving and sanitizing the DME, let it cool to transfer to an LBK, measured the OG, aerated, and added the pectic enzyme, tannin, yeast nutrient, and yeast. OG was 1.042 at this point including pre-boiled water to bring the volume to the 8.5 quart mark, and was calculated to be 1.048 later after adding honey and cherry juice. I added the honey after 3 days, and the cherry juice and pumpkin pie spice after 6 days. I bottled it after 6 weeks in the LBK, bottle primed, then allowed more conditioning in the bottle. FG = 1.006 for 90% apparent attenuation and ABV = 6.8%. It has a nice balanced cider flavor, although it has limited head and carbonation, as is common in ciders.

[John Sand]

Sweet! Um, I mean Nice! So, you beat yourself?

[Foothiller]

Yes, 1st & 2nd in the combined category. In addition to the mead and cider, and some other entries, I also have a Cranberry Wheat beer, which was my Christmas beer this year, entered in the CA State Fair. But I didn't have enough bottles left to also enter it in the county fair. I wonder if I could have swept the category. With 700 entries in the state fair (judging next week), the categories will not be combined.