Roast or Toast - The Beer Trolling Thread

[Evan]

am I the only active home brewer in MM?

I home 'brew' cider.

do you crush your own apples? we have done mead, wine, and beer at the house but haven't tried cider. A kid I went to high school with is down with crushing his own apples for his cider. He's still bottling and I'm trying to convince him to just keg.

home brewing and taking taster courses... becoming a certified beer judge... made me a super beer snob. To the point we (Sylvia and I) have had one beer (each), not finished them, paid the bill and never have come back. Every time I buy an import beer I fear what I'm going to taste since there is so much that can go wrong in packaging, transport, and storage.

No, the Orchard side of cider making is a huge amount of work, and doesnt really even save you much money over buying juice.
I buy cider specific juice and blends from a few places in the area. Distillery Lane in MD, Albermarle Cider in Cville, and Old Hill Cider right there in the Harrisonburg area. Basically I have to drive all over the state to get juice. You have no idea how jealous I am of beer brewers who can just go buy a big bag of malted gain!

I also will do store juice, which is dramatically cheaper and can still be good, especially if I add some some flair like cherry or ginger.

Im currently tweaking my process for pasteurization, so I can create off-dry and semi-dry cider.

Funny you mention the snobbery, Anne and I are the same after visiting and sampling about every kind of cider we can get our hands on. It becomes pretty obvious who are genuine cidermakers, vs people just trying to cash in on a trend. (looking at you, Castle Hill)