Yes, cider! That sometimes clear, sometimes murky, dry-or-sweet-or tart libation that Americans drank by the gallon before beer came along and screwed everything up. Yet despite its seasonal charm, and despite a recent surge in popularity (no doubt thanks to my tireless efforts), for some people this drink is still hard to find. That’s why I’ve put together this helpful guide. Whether you’re like me and lament the downfall of hard cider as America’s beverage of choice or you’re thirsty for something different and our Beverages section holds no temptation, you’ll find the information you need in here.

At its core (no pun intended), cider-making is all about patience. Beer’s paltry one month aging time pales in comparison to the (at least) three month commitment required to ferment a batch of cider. In terms of physical effort, as well, it takes far less to prepare beer’s wort than it does cider’s juice (“must”). However, any home brewer familiar with the experience of sipping homemade cider and watching leaves fall can tell you it’s well worth the trouble!

Get your juice.

As cider is nothing more than aged apple juice, you’d think it’s as easy as buying a bottle of Indian Summer at the store and drilling in an airlock, but you’d be direly wrong. The preservatives in commercial apple juice ruin cider production-your average bottle of juice will rot before it ferments-and the lack of yeast means you’d need to add your own (discerning brewers can do this anyway, but it’s not strictly necessary). If you must buy commercial juice, buy a brand without preservatives or other weird chemicals; otherwise, head to your nearest apple orchard and buy some fresh apple juice.

More experienced brewers-or those looking for a challenge-can start completely from scratch by going to an orchard and obtaining fresh apples. This method is time-consuming and difficult; in addition to picking the right blend of apples, you must mash (“scrat”) and press the apples yourself to get your juice. Small volumes of apple juice can be obtained through juicers and small presses, but it’s advised you buy or you’re your own equipment for larger amounts. All this can be tough work, but it offers something premade juice does not: total control over your cider-making experience. If you do decide to start from scratch, you’ll also need to carefully balance your apples. To create a dry cider, use a balance of 2:1 tart apples to sweet. To create a sweet cider, do the opposite. And never use cooking apples.

The nice thing is, once you’ve obtained your must, the process gets simple.

Store the juice.

First of all, get a glass or wooden fermentation container to store your juice. This can be anything from an airtight jar to a full-sized barrel, depending on the volume of cider you’re looking to produce. As with all brewing tools, your container must be sterilized before use. Pour in the must, and be sure the container fills to the top. Leaving extra space for air virtually guarantees you’ll end up making apple vinegar-not that apple vinegar is a bad thing, but it’s not what we’re trying to make!

Once your must is in its fermentation container, check the gravity of the juice. This is the density of the liquid, and it’s an indicator of just how alcoholic your drink will be-the higher the number, the more potent the brew. It’s not a critical step, but if you’re going for predictable results, pick up a hydrometer. Gravity should ideally be between 1.050 and 1.080.

Pitch the yeast (maybe).

Traditional cider is made using only the yeast present in the skins of the apples. If you’ve got fresh-pressed must or untreated juice from an orchard, you don’t need to add any yeast at all. However, if you’re using store-bought juice or want to more exactly control your fermentation, pitch in a vial of champagne yeast (available from brew supply stores). Then close your fermentation container, seal it, connect an airlock (partially filled with water), and play the waiting game.

The waiting is the hardest part.

Store your containers in a dark place between 40 and 60 degrees and proceed to twiddle your thumbs for at least a month, preferably three. You should check on the containers regularly-once the bubbling stops, the yeast has consumed all the sugar in the juice, and it’s time to bottle, or rack, the resulting cider. You’re almost done! After sampling the fruits of your labors to make sure disaster hasn’t struck, use sterile tubing to siphon your cider into bottles.

Now, before you cap the bottles, a question: do you want carbonated cider? Traditional ciders are almost always flat, but most popular modern cider has at least some carbonation. If you want sparkle in your sip, pitch in a little extra-fine sugar for the yeast to continue chowing down on. Otherwise, simply bottle the cider.

If all this looks too intimidating but you still want to try some fresh-made cider, kits can also be purchased from Mr. Beer.

Now that you’ve got hard cider of your own, consider these fun applications:

Apple Cider Corned Beef and Cabbage

Buttery Mulled Cider

Baby Back Ribs with Spiced Apple Cider Mop

Apple Cider Punch

But make sure to save a bottle or two. Some days, there’s nothing better than cracking one open, drinking deeply, and watching those leaves fall.

TableTenders

TableTenders is a system invented by an Atlanta company, Table Tap LLC. The system is remarkably simple. A series of taps is installed at each table. The diners and drinkers can then sample each as they like, drinking at their own pace. There are some significant advantages to be found here that go far beyond being able to serve yourself.

You Avoid the Bar

How many times have you stood at a crowded bar and waited to be noticed, or waited endlessly for the bartender to finally get around to you? With this new system, there’s no longer a problem of long waits to refill your mug. When you finish one, just hit the tap at your table and refill it on your own!

You Avoid the Server

Servers are an important part of any restaurant and they can make or break an establishment’s reputation. However, busy nights usually mean that you have to wait until your server has a chance to check on your situation to get a refill on your beer. On very busy days that can take quite some time. With TableTenders, that’s no longer a problem. Just pour yourself a fresh mug and off you go.

Buy the Horse, But Not the Cart

How often have you wanted to try a particular beer but didn’t want to pay for an entire pint just to see if you liked it? TableTenders serves up charges based on the ounce – not by the serving. That means that you can sample a few ounces of each beer on tap at your table and come off cheaper than buying a glass of each.

Computer Controls

TableTenders operates with a computer control system – both at your table and for the venue. You can see how much you’re being charged via an LCD screen, and make your drinking decisions based on that information. The restaurant or bar can also track how much you have consumed. However, the system has a 32-ounce limit per person that will immediately shut down the tap once it’s been reached.

Poto Cervesia,

Dustin Canestorp

A bottling wand offers many advantages. If you bottle without a wand, then you will need to do so using a siphon. This can be a little tricky, especially the first few times you do this. It can also prove to be a bit of a hassle even after you have it down. As an alternative, you could pour the beer into a funnel into the bottles. But this can be really troublesome trying to lift 5 gallons of beer to pour into a funnel. Not to mention, it is a good way to aerate the beer, which is something you want to avoid doing.

To make this task easier and more efficient, it is a good idea to have a bottling bucket with a spigot. If you do not have a spigot on your bottling bucket, you can always add one to it. This is just another possible DIY project that exists when learning how to make beer. It isn’t too difficult a project either.

Once you have a spigot, you can connect your bottling wand to some vinyl tubing to connect to the spigot directly. You only need a few inches of tubing. Then, you can place the bucket at the edge of a counter or table with the wand pointing down. Simply place your bottles up into the bottling wand. Pushing the bottom of the bottle into the wand will release a flow of beer. When you have filled your bottle, release the bottle from the wand, and the flow of beer will stop. This makes pouring much easier, because you can control the flow of the pour (as opposed to having to pinch the siphon to stop the flow).

But the big advantage bottling wands offer is that they fill your beer bottle from the bottom up. For one, this eliminates the guesswork as to the amount of headspace you need to leave for carbonation. The wand itself will displace space in the bottle. Once the bottle is full of beer, stop the flow. Once you remove the wand, the perfect amount of headspace will be left.

Also, this method keeps you from splashing the beer into the bottles, which agitates the beer and allows oxygen to get into it. You want to avoid this at all costs. Remember, the air has germs, bacteria and other microorganisms that want to get into your beer and contaminate it. So you want to avoid splashing the beer and aerating it.

Here is a bottling tip that will simplify the process, and keep things clean as well. If you have limited space, this is perfect. For bottling beer, you need to have the bottles sanitized prior to using. Simply place the bottles top down in your dishwasher a couple hours before you bottle. Run them through a wash cycle, but do not use any soap or drying agents, just hot water. This will actually sterilize the bottles, even better than sanitizing them!

Then, after they have dried, place your bottling bucket on the counter just above the dishwasher. Connect your vinyl tubing to the spigot, and also connect your bottling wand. Then, open the dishwasher door all the way and bottle on the door (or above it). This way, if you have any spills, they wind up on the dishwasher door and not all over your floor. Plus, your bottles are close by and ready to go.

A bottling wand is not essential in the process of how to make beer. However, it is an upgrade to seriously consider adding to your first equipment kit, or purchasing early into learning how to make beer. It makes the process of bottling much easier.

Want a cheaper and equally good alternative?

Then build your own DIY solar panel. With the right instructional manual, a complete list of materials and contact detail of manufacturers, building solar energy panel would cost only $200 dollars of your salary. Yes it is true. You will be able to construct a 120w solar-panel for only $200 dollars. This saves you as much as $450 dollars enough to build another one to increase the generation of electricity. With $50 dollars still at hand, you can still buy a case of beer to celebrate your independence.

For first timers Earth 4 Energy provides very good instructional guide on how to construct these panels.
What is only required are the following:

• Detailed instructional manual (much better if given by an expert)
• A complete list of materials needed
• A classified list of materials from manufactures which only a few knows
• Oneself

Nearly everybody could make their own solar energy panels be it a female, male, middle-aged, old or young to power up a number of home appliances, heating the house or power even the entire house, if possible.

As you could see DIY solar panels aren’t costly as you thought it is. Moreover, using it could save you a lot of money in contrast to buying commercial made and having it installed. Don’t forget to look into my guide that contains over a 100 page of information, pictures and videos.

Steeping uses specialty grains that have already been mashed. Mashing uses base malts that need to be mashed. You do not want to steep base malts because this will add starches to the wort that have not been converted to sugar. As a result, your final beer will end up with the starches in it, which will affect the clarity and mouthfeel of your beer.

You can combine base malts and specialty malts together, and by doing so you are now mashing. When combining the two, you must make adjustments to ensure that you mash the base malts in order to convert the starches into sugars you can use. When combining specialty malts and base malts, you can do a partial mash or go all out and do a full mash, which is all grain brewing. Partial mashing is right in the middle between extract brewing and all grain brewing.

The difference between partial mashing and all grain brewing is the use if malt extract. Partial mashing involves using the malt extract, either as your only base malt or with additional base malt(s). In all grain, you are mashing all your base malt(s) from grains and not using any extract.

Mashing requires specific times and temperatures. You must mash the grains long enough and at the right temperature in order for the conversion of starches into sugars to take place. Therefore, mashing times are longer than steeping. Constant temperature is the other important factor.

When mashing for beer brewing, many brewers use a mash tun. This is yet another DIY project in beer brewing, so it does not require the purchase of any specialized beer brewing equipment. You can make a mash tun from a cooler. It is necessary to make a few adjustments to the cooler, so that it also doubles as a lauter tun which filters out the mash before racking to fermentation. This requires just a few steps and a few inexpensive pieces of equipment that you can get at any local hardware or home supply store.

There are different types of mashes that can be done, but the one that is most common is the single infusion method. Likely this will be the first one you attempt when you start mashing. Single infusion involves bringing a specific amount of water up to a certain temperature for mashing. The resting temperatures are usually between 149 F and 165 F.

Many brewers use 154 F as the preferred temperature for mashing because this gives a nice balance of body and fermentability that works really well with British and American style ales. To do a single infusion mash, the strike water (the water that is used for the mash) is heated to a temperature higher than the desired mashing temperature so that once the grains are added, the water temperature is where the brewer desires for mashing. In other words, the strike temperature is actually slightly higher than the mashing temperature to account for the drop in temperature that results after adding the grains.

John Palmer, author of the beer brewing bible “How To Brew”, uses the following formula to calculate the strike water temperature: Strike Water Temperature = (.2/R)(T2-T1) + T2. R represents the ratio of water to grain in quarts per pound, T1 is the temperature of the grains in Fahrenheit, and T2 is the target temperature of the mash in Fahrenheit.

Many brewers struggle hitting the proper mash temperature using the single infusion method. This can be frustrating. One note about the formula–it doesn’t account for heat loss to the mash tun. It assumes that the mash tun has a thermal capacity of 0. To get around this issue, you can preheat the mash tun with some boiling water or adjust the strike water temperature based on previous experience.

If you choose to adjust the strike water temperature, you need to make sure to keep the mash tun and grain temperature consistent between the different mashes. Another way to account for the unknown thermal capacity of the mash tun is to adjust the strike water’s temperature after it has been added to the mash tun and before adding the grains. This can be done by adding hot or cold water.

To start you off, here are five easy but very cool things to add to your apartment’s personality. Remember to put on your safety glasses and other safety gear when it comes to handling cutters and other potentially dangerous tools and objects!

Potato chip can light shade – You can also use a milk can or any similar object that you would otherwise throw away, but a cardboard tube such as used for some popular chips brands will be easier to cut. Make sure that the can fits over your bare bulb light fixture, so go for the thicker sized cans, not the narrow tubes. Cut holes in the can, such as random shapes, leaving only about half an inch of material between holes to give the shade some strength. The point is to have a lot more hole area than solid area, in fact the higher the ratio of hole to solid, the better. Take black spray paint and paint the entire thing inside and out, then cover the entire cylinder outside with a nice-quality tracing paper, just spot gluing it on so it doesn’t wrinkle. If the hole patterns turn out particularly nice, apply the tracing paper to the inside. Experiment with colored cellophane if you want to get funky. Then attach the entire rig to the ceiling with three or four small tabs of Velcro so you can remove it easily to change the bulb. Also, experiment with a hanging light.

Teabag air fresheners – Some people find the usual potpourri fresheners too overpowering. Try flavored black-teabags instead, like peppermint, orange cinnamon, and the like. Depending on the size of the room, three, four, or more teabags can be spread around so their smell wafts in the soft air currents that are present in any room with activity and movement. This is especially good in the kitchen to cover oniony or fishy smells.

Trinket mobiles – Collecting small trinkets like seashells and pretty rocks, dime-store jewelry or even printed photos and drink coasters when we travel or to mark waypoints in our life, is a nice way to keep good memories. Instead of keeping all the items in a drawer though, try hanging them with a string or a thin ribbon, each by itself or in a vertical column three items long, with the heaviest or biggest on top. Then hang these like mobiles by the window where the shiny ones can catch the light, or in irregular bunches on a plain wall. You get a nicely eclectic accent piece which will bring a smile to your face every time you see it.

Soda can pen holders – Instead of throwing your soda or beer cans away, make pen holders out of them. Just cut out the top and sand the sharp edges. You can also try applying a bead of PVA glue to the cut edges to dull them. I especially like to collect unique regional issues of cola cans and regional beers specifically to turn into pen holders.

Furniture socks – Old, shapeless thick socks still have life in them. Put them on the legs of heavy chairs and tables for a funky visual twist that also serves the purpose of making it easier to move them around when you’re vacuuming. Try same-colored socks for that formal look, or go punk with colorful mismatched sport and knee socks.

Cactus terrarium – Just like a goldfish bowl but without the hard-to-care-for goldfish. Small cacti are cheap, easy to take care of, and come in a wide variety of interesting shapes. Pick one that already comes in its own small pot, and put it in a clear goldfish bowl, burying the pot in decorative stones you can find at an aquarium supplies shop or in the hardware gardening section. If you have the space, go for a bigger aquarium and put more than one variety of cactus in it.

Let these simple projects get your imagination soaring! There’s virtually no end to the list of cool apartment stuff you can make yourself, all cheap or even free!