A few months back, I hurriedly harvested a bushel of not quite ripe apples from the wild trees around my property–it was the day before tropical storm Irene hammered Vermont, and I didn’t think there would be an apple left to harvest…as it turned out, the storm did little damage at our place, and there were plenty of apples left to fully ripen after the storm which have become hard cider…long story short, the not quite ripe apples became an insipid and very dry hard cider. My wife, who is a great cook, took a gallon of it, and reduced it to about a cup in volume, adding a cup of sugar toward the end of the reduction…it now has the consistency of maple syrup, and a flavor that is a cider version of a reduced basalmic vinegar…it is incredible on steamed kale, or drizzled over smoked trout served with fresh pasta…serious umami…and an easy way to transform cider that was “meh” into something amazing and savory.
I have done a similar thing with extra wort. Makes a great BBQ sauce base.
