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By now, more than a few of you should know (let’s be frank here — besides Frank there are only about 54 of you at last count that read this so really most of you should know) that I have taken up the craft of homebrewing.

Been doing it for a while now. Since COVID in fact, when forced into introvertness I began throwing things together to create tasty libations of the sort that my ancestors would have drank.

Mead was the starting point, but I have since added hard apple cider, one run at beer and now that I’ve planted grape vines this past summer I anticipate making my own wine in about a couple years.

It’s a fun hobby, if not slightly expensive, and along the way I’ve learned a lot. None more so than the lesson I learned this past Sunday morning while pasteurizing bottles of hard cider.

For those who may not know exactly what I’m talking about, I’ll explain a little bit so everybody can enjoy the lessons I learned from a rather exciting morning.

To simplify things, the process I and other homebrewers use in hard cider is fermenting out to dry, meaning there is very little — if any — sweetness left in the brew after the yeast has gobbled up the available sugars in the process that creates alcohol.

I, of course, did that starting a while back. So far, everything is good.

I’m not the most scientific person in the world when it comes to brewing, which in the long run I kind of like. It links me closer to the history aspect and those who made these types of things without said science to back it up.

That’s important to remember because it now must be known that I’m not a giant fan of dry apple cider. I prefer a little bit of sweet to my cider and I like it carbonized, which leads me into what could be termed the dangerous part of all of this.

I use a technique I learned where once the cider is fermented out to dry I add a can of concentrated apple juice to reintroduce the sweetness back into the brew.

It also gives the remaining yeast something more to begin feeding on, which introduces the carbonization to the drink, but you have to know when it’s ready in order to pasteurize it and kill the yeast and thus prevent it from further devouring the sugar.

Still with me?

For this, I use an empty pop bottle (plastic) and fill it until just about to the top, or probably a little less. As the yeast does its work, it creates gas in the bottle, pressurizing it and when it gets to the point where you can’t squeeze in the sides — as if you just bought a pop from the store — it’s ready for the next step with the glass bottles.

It’s important to pay attention to this part of the process and follow the next steps carefully, because there is a very real chance the bottles could blow. No, check that. Explode. Remember that part.

The next step is to bring water to just below the boiling point — 190 degrees — which is the required heat to kill the yeast and stop it from doing its work. Once it reaches that part, you turn off the heat, remove the pot from the burner, put the bottles in and let them just kind of steep for 10 minutes.

I can say that up until Sunday I have never had any issues with this, until I promptly followed all of these steps, but didn’t remove it from the burner.

Not entirely sure what I was thinking with not doing this step, but it is the reason behind my interesting morning.

Five minutes had clicked by and everything was going smoothly, until about minute six when there was a large “Pang!” sound as one of the bottles clearly reached some sort of Chernobyl moment.

The sound of the incredibly loud “Pang” was the sound of the shattered bottle exploding against the sides of the aluminum boil pot I was using. Loud as it was, however, it wasn’t nearly as impressive as the lid flying off the pot, flipping twice and landing back on the stove, followed by the sweet smell of free-floating hard apple cider filling the kitchen.

Frankly, I was kind of stunned by what I just saw and just kind of stared at the spectacle pondering its meaning. Understanding what probably happened, I carefully sidled over to view the aftermath of water and cider everywhere.

Somewhat calmly, I moved the pot from the heat and recovered it to try and get the rest done, which I’ve seemed to do — I think. Honestly, I’m a little surprised the other bottles didn’t go either, which now has me wondering if I’m going to come home to find cider covering every surface of our laundry room at some point.

Worse yet, I still had four bottles remaining and have to admit to you all that I felt a little silly donning safety goggles and two oven mitts in order to continue the process of the second bath.

Science man. It’s always keeping you on your toes.