Hello, friends!

It’s been a while since you’ve last heard from me, but I have some news: I recently participated in a podcast with Allen and Tysen over at Meadmakr and Matt Williams of Winemaker’s Academy called The Serious Cyser Symposium.

The Podcast

In the symposium, we discuss Cyser–a honey/apple crossover beverage–and how to make it. If you’re interested in either cidermaking or meadmaking, give it a listen–I think you’ll find something useful there…provided that my monotone droning doesn’t put you to sleep.

In the podcast, we touch on such topics as:

• cider apples vs. table apples
• flavor characteristics of apples
• blending cider
• balancing apple flavors with honey
• processing apples
• how to use apples in meadmaking
• yeasts used in making cyser/cider/mead
• ice cider

The show notes include links to additional content, including some on my new site: Cider School.

If the podcasts sparks questions, feel free to leave them in the comments below (or as a comment on the Cyser Podcast page), and we’ll be sure to address them. Cider and Mead are pretty broad topics, so I generally find that content like this sparks even more questions than I had beforehand. But such is the process of learning, I suppose.

 Announcing Cider School

I’ve touched on cidermaking process before on Cidersage, but for process-heavy content, I’ve recently decided to relocate this sort of content to a new site–Ciderschool. Over time, you’ll see more of my process geekery-oriented content there, be it details around planting and maintaining cider apple trees, cidermaking process, meadmaking process, or the ins and outs of opening a cidery (something else I’m in the process of doing). There will be a blog there as well, focused around the details of my orcharding, cidermaking, and other projects.

Cidersage will remain here where it is, and will focus on events, reviews, and other content around the appreciation of cider. That way, if you’re more into reviews, appreciation, and cider culture, you won’t have to wade through all the cidermaking content, the latter of which will be more centrally located on ciderschool. Clear as mud? Good…

Back To MeadMakr…

I can’t recommend the MeadMakr podcast enough for those interested in either making mead or appreciating its various flavor characteristics–in their brief time so far, they’ve already interviewed such luminaries in the field as Ken Schramm, Michael Fairbrother, and Vicky Rowe, and they continue to develop new and interesting content. My recommendation? Subscribe to them on iTunes, devour their free, meadtastic content, and leave them a review on iTunes.

Upcoming Content

So, what next to expect here? Well, depends on what events I manage to make it to. Major candidates coming up soon are:

• Lakewood Cider Days–the Rocky Mountain Cider Association does a hard cider tasting within the walls of the event, with multiple cideries represented. If you’ll be in Colorado October 4th–check it out! 12pm-4pm, $25, unlimited cider tasting with over 50 ciders available.

• Big B’s Hard Cider Festival–Oct 24th in Hotchkiss, CO–multiple cideries represented.

 

Stay tuned…