Question:
Does anyone in this group know how to make hard apple cider at home? Is it easy or is it a very involved process like beer or wine making? I have looked for recipes, but haven’t found any sources at all. The FAQS don’t give advice on making hard cider. If you can help, please post here and thanx for your imput.
Check out The Real Cider and Perry Page at http://sun1.bham.ac.uk/GraftonG/cider/homepage.htm, and check out Paul Correnty’s book, "The Art of Cidermaking." Cider is incredibly easy to make, especially in comparison with beer.
Response:
Does anyone in this group know how to make hard apple cider at home? Is it easy or is it a very involved process like beer or wine making? I have looked for recipes, but haven’t found any sources at all. The FAQS don’t give advice on making hard cider. If you can help, please post here and thanx for your imput.
See my web page at: http://www.mnsinc.com/moore I’ve been dieing to say that, thanks!
Response:
I posted this about a year ago, and got some good comments back. Here goes again. This recipe was developed for use with pre-packaged apple juice. If you’re starting with apples, here’s how to make juice. Rinse the apples in clean water, then shred them. You can use a food processor for this, but I use a shredder I had made out of stainless steel. It consists of a blade about 30 cm long welded to the bottom of a 1/2 inch shaft. The device is mounted in a 1/2 inch drive drill. I half fill a bucket with apples, and run this thing through them several times. Pulp the apples well. The more they resemble apple sauce, the better. Add the appropriate amount of pectic enzyme (see amount below) while you are shredding. This help to break down the flesh of the apples, and makes them easier to press. I also add a little sulphite, or ascorbic acid (vitamin C) while shredding, to keep the apple pulp from oxidizing. Oxidizing makes apple juice brown, and changes the flavour. Now that you have a bucket of apple sauce, dump some in a wine press, and press the juice out. It’s nice to have someone helping you, so one person shreds, while the other presses. Being a home brewer, there should be something around you can bribe a friend with. There! Now that we have juice, on with the recipe … Apple Cider from Juice Start off with about 22 litres (about 5 gallons) of apple juice. I’ve always used pure apple juice, not from concentrate. I don’t see any reason why juice from concentrate wouldn’t work. Just make sure there’s no potassium sorbate (otherwise known as sorbic acid) present. In fact, I would steer clear of any preservatives except for ascorbic acid (vitamin C) and/or bisulphite) Remember, sorbic acid is bad, ascorbic acid is good. 
Sterilise a bucket of at least 6 gallons (27 litres) capacity by swishing around a solution of meta-bisulphite in it. Pour this out, and give the bucket a quick rinse with clean water. Now, pour the juice in the bucket. Add about 1/4 teaspoon of pectic enzyme per gallon of juice. Pectin is the stuff in fruit that makes jelly jell, and apples are high in pectin. Alcohol activates pectin, so if you don’t destroy the pectin with pectic enzyme, the pectin will come out of solution, and make the cider cloudy, once the alcohol develops. I also add about 1/2 teaspoon of yeast nutrient per gallon of juice. This helps the Champagne yeast get started faster, which in turn inhibits the growth of wild yeasts or bacteria. Add a packet of Champagne yeast. Beer yeast might work, but I suspect it might get killed off by the higher alcohol content of the cider. Wine yeast, such as Montrachet works, but doesn’t seem to stick to the bottom of the bottle very well when you pour the cider out. Cover the bucket with a sheet of plastic. This should not be an air tight seal. It’s just to keep the dust and bugs out. If the bucket is in a cool place, you wight wrap a battery blanket, or other heating strap around it. The juice should start off at about 20 to 25 degrees Celsius. (70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit) After 2 to 4 days, a cap of yeast should form on the juice. Stir this back in. Give it a sniff. It should smell like apples, yeast, and a bit of alcohol. It should NOT smell like vinegar, nor have a strong sulphur smell. Let the stuff ferment until it slows down appreciably, and reaches a specific gravity of about 1.005. At this point, rack it to a secondary fermentor, and fit it with a fermentation lock. When the fermentation really slows, and the cider is starting to clear (in a week or so) rack it again. If you want a still cider, leave it in the secondary for at least a month. Rack it whenever there is an appreciable amount of sediment, and bottle it in wine bottles. (DO NOT ADD SUGAR WHEN BOTTLING IN WINE BOTTLES) If you want a sweeter drink, add a wine conditioner at this point. Personally, I prefer dry cider. If you want a sparkling cider, don’t leave it in the secondary after racking it. Bottle it as you would beer. That is, mix about 200 grams of dextrose into the 5 gallon batch, and bottle it in beer bottles. Leave it in the bottles for about a month to develop carbonation. There will be a bit of sediment at the bottom of the bottle, but if you pour the cider out carefully, you shouldn’t get any in your glass. As I mentioned, the Champagne yeast sticks to the bottom of the bottle fairly well. That’s it! All of these ingredients (meta-bisulphite, pectic enzyme, yeast nutrient, dextrose, etc) are available at your nearest brewing shop. If you want, you can take this letter with you to the shop, and they may be able to give you some pointers I may have missed. If you have any questions, send me an E-mail. I can’t guarantee I’ll have all the answers, but I’ll give it a shot. Good luck. Steve BTW, I apologise if I’ve mixed metric and imperial measures in this recipe. I’m Canadian, and we seem to be stuck about halfway through metric conversion in this country. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Does anyone in this group know how to make hard apple cider at home? Is it easy or is it a very involved process like beer or wine making? I have looked for recipes, but haven’t found any sources at all. The FAQS don’t give advice on making hard cider. If you can help, please post here and thanx for your imput.
Response:
Does anyone in this group know how to make hard apple cider at home? Is it easy or is it a very involved process like beer or wine making? I have looked for recipes, but haven’t found any sources at all. The FAQS don’t give advice on making hard cider. If you can help, please post here and thanx for your imput.
Response:
Does anyone in this group know how to make hard apple cider at home? Is it easy or is it a very involved process like beer or wine making? I have looked for recipes, but haven’t found any sources at all. The FAQS don’t give advice on making hard cider. If you can help, please post here and thanx for your imput.
A good place to start is in the homebrew archives, at: ftp://ftp.stanford.edu/pub/clubs/homebrew There is a file devoted to cider. There is also the mead file, which has a few cider recipes (The Bee’s Lees). Anne Anne Dubrofsky /_ _| | -//-
Response:
Try the Cats Meow they have a lot of everything! http://alpha.rollanet.org/cm3/CatsMeow3.html E. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text -Does anyone in this group know how to make hard apple cider at home? Is it easy or is it a very involved process like beer or wine making? I have looked for recipes, but haven’t found any sources at all. The FAQS don’t give advice on making hard cider. If you can help, please post here and thanx for your imput.
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