Observations of a Cider Widow

I have lost OH to the lively, bubbly, if not to say yeasty, home-brewing community. Since it's become clear yesterday that every single batch that OH has ever brewed, whether from home-pressed apple juice or el-cheapo shop-bought, is a success, there's now no stopping him.

Today he's bottled two more demijohns, which is an impressive operation involving yards of plastic tubing which basically takes over the entire kitchen. That's totally fine by me -- I'm out in the drizzle sowing more seeds. When I pop in, I am offered a taste of the latest concoction, a turbo cider made out of Lidl apple juice fortified with Polish raspberry syrup. The extra sugar has fully converted to alcohol and even though I only take a sip of the (still yeasty) brew, I can instantly feel the hit. "Proper falling-down water!" OH beams, "This'll be at least 7%."

OH is on a mission now: we've still got bottles of last year's elderberry syrup on the pantry shelf, which aren't doing anything since we've still not finished pouring the first litre over our yoghurt. He taps various home-brewers for advice, and I am touched by just how helpful and supportive everyone is. The home-brewing community is peopled by middle-aged men who can get quite obsessive and biochemical about some aspects of home-fermenting but who are also refreshingly laid-back about exactly what can be brewed. Which is everything. Everything that yeast likes to eat.

And now there is another demijohn of what will hopefully become elderberry wine fermenting noisily under the stairs. Given the huge amount of sugar already in the syrup, plus the normally sweet red grape juice OH has been mixing the syrup with, we're looking at synapse-melting levels of alcohol in the finished product. Will report back from round about Christmas time -- hopefully coherently -- because that's when this latest experiment is meant to be ready for consumption. 

Now however is the stage when I lose my darling OH to Airlock TV -- he'll often kneel in front of the demijohns and watch the CO2 bubbles work their way through. And it's true -- there is a magic to this natural process which has been harnessed so well, to give us humans so much pleasure (and cause us to fall down. Or snooze off on the sofa.). Right now, OH is poring over a spreadsheet on which he is calculating the expected sugar-to-alcohol conversion for his current brews. He's nothing if not methodical.

I'll have a job luring him to the allotment later on. Maybe if I keep dangling last night's cider bottle in front of him on a rod with string. Then, once there, we could get pleasantly drunk in our new shed, fall down and forget about gardening in the rain.