Hard Apple Cider Food

HOW TO MAKE HARD CIDER IN 5 EASY STEPS

Steps:

• The hardest part of making cider is getting the juice out of those apples, and for that you need a cider press. To make it affordable, we co-bought this high quality cider press. My video shows the apples being ground to a pulp, the cider being pressed, and then us pouring the cider into a carboy.
• We pour the cider right from the press directly into the carboy though a strainer and funnel, as you can see in the video above. When almost full, we pop the airlock on and stow it out of the way in a cool spot in the house out of direct sunlight (we place it in our homestead root cellar).
• Then ... just do nothing. Organic or unsprayed apples, like grapes and other fruits, grow with naturally occurring yeast right on their skins, so your fresh cider will start fermenting almost immediately. (Which means those microscopic yeast cells will start "eating" the sugars in the juice and "excreting" alcohol and carbon dioxide gas).
• The initial fermenting process will create bubbles and foam caused by the release of carbon dioxide, which can come up through the airlock and sometimes clog it, (especially if you haven't strained out larger apple chunks), so monitor this during the first few days, and clean the foam out of the airlocks.
• Alternately, you could use a large diameter hose the size of your carboy jar opening (sometimes called a blow-off tube) fitted snugly into the opening with the far end curved down into another smaller jar of water, that allows the foam to bubble out safely without clogging for the first few days, and then you can install the air locks.
• And that's it! Hard cider is on the way. Now all you need to do is wait for the bubbling to slow and stop, signifying that most or all of the sugar left in the juice has been digested by the yeast, and converted into alcohol (and CO2). This could take several weeks or up to several months, depending on a variety of factors including temperature, initial sugar in the apples, yeast vigor, etc.

HARD APPLE CIDER FROM JUICE

Steps:

• Be sure to sanitize anything that is going to touch the cider. If you are fermenting in a store-bought jug of apple juice, then you will only need to sanitize for racking and bottling.
• Remove 1/2 cup of juice from the jug. This will leave enough room to prevent the fermentation from bubbling over. I recommend testing the sugar content of your apple juice using a hydrometer. It needs to be at least 1.050. Feel free to add up to 1 cup of sugar, as needed. This will increase the potential alcohol content and/or sweeten the cider.
• Add the yeast and yeast nutrient. Put the cap back on the bottle of juice and give it a good shake to mix everything up.
• Remove the lid and top the bottle with an airlock.
• If you are using unfiltered apple juice, then you will need to rack the cider to a clean jug after 1 week. If you are using filtered apple juice, then racking isn't necessary.
• Allow the cider to ferment for 2-4 weeks (1-3 weeks after racking) before bottling. Exactly how long you leave the cider to ferment will depend on your personal taste. If you like sweet cider, bottle it after 2 weeks. Wait 4 weeks for a dry cider.
• To prime, the carbonation, add mix 2 Tbsp of white sugar or dextrose in 1/4 cup of boiling water. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Then mix the sugar water into the cider just before bottling.
• Leave the bottled cider to ferment at room temperature for another 1-2 weeks, until it is carbonated. Store the cider in the fridge and enjoy it within 2 months. Because this recipe is a sulfite-free recipe the cider is not shelf-stable and will continue to ferment, even in the fridge. So if you like sweet cider, drink it within 1 month.

HOW TO MAKE HARD CIDER FROM WHOLE APPLES

Steps:

• I don't use any vinegar or veggie wash because I want to keep the yeast on the skins on the apples.
• This is mostly just to check for bugs or other issues with the apples. Discard or cut around any that have an infested core, and cut out major bruises. It's nice to have a partner for this part, and it's the perfect job for a kid with basic knife skills. But I have done it by myself, too. Transfer chopped fruit to a clean bowl by your juicer. You don't need to worry about coring or taking stems out- the juicer will do that for you.
• As your juicer pitcher gets full, pour it through a funnel into a sterilized demijohn.
• When the pulp container starts getting full, take a few minutes to squeeze the juice out of the pulp. Place your sieve over a clean bowl, and line it with your kitchen towel. Put a couple heaping handfuls of pulp in the towel, and gather the edges and twist to wring out as much of the juice as possible. My own juicer is not great, so I actually get 50% of the total juice this way. Your pulp (now called pommace) should be really dry when you're done, and you can just compost it. Pour the juice into the demijohn, and get back to juicing.
• Once you have juiced all of your fruit, taste the juice and add sugar. This is where a little guesswork will come in, because the acidity and tannin content, as well as the sweetness of your fruit will vary. I usually add about a cup of sugar to a gallon of juice, and I don't like mine very sweet. During the fermentation process, the yeast will eat the sugar (both the fructose from the fruit and the added sugar) and turn it into alcohol- so this step is both for flavor and alcohol level. Those of you in the USA may not really need to add much sugar, as most of the apples there tend to be really sweet. Don't get hung up on this step, as you can add more sugar later if the brew is turning out too dry or tart for your taste.
• (This step is optional, depending on whether you have a lot of foam/ pulp floating at the top of your demijohn.) Put your demijohn on a tray or in a bowl, and keep it in a warm spot for about a day or so. The yeast will start to become active, and things will get bubbly. Your cider will split into layers, with foam floating on top. If your demijohn is pretty full, the foam will come out the top. I think this is great, as it's a good way to get rid of that funky stuff.
• Put a rubber stopper and an airlock on your demijohn, and let it sit for a week.
• - siphon it into another sterilized demijohn, leaving the yeasty sediment in the bottom of the first one, so you have a much cleaner cider in the new demijohn. Taste it and see how it's doing. If it's already tasting pretty dry, you can add some more sugar before you put the airlock back on.
• Some people like a pretty sweet cider, and bottle it after a week. I like mine pretty dry, tart and strong, so I usually give it three weeks or even more. Fermenting it this long means that it won't be very fizzy in the end- but you can also add a little sugar just before bottling to regain some carbonation. This is totally up to you, of course. You could experiment and bottle half to drink and leave the rest for another week. Whatever you decide, the next step is to bottle your hard cider. Use the siphon hose to fill swing-top bottles. The type of bottle is really important, since it lets out small amounts of the pressure that builds up, so you don't have a glass explosion later.

HOMEMADE HARD APPLE CIDER

Steps:

• In large stock pot, combine apple cider with the sugar. Heat to almost boiling, stirring until sugar is dissolved. Continue to heat for about 45 minutes - never allowing it to come to a boil. Remove from heat, cover with sanitized pot lid. (If you don't have a 7-10 gallon stock pot or turkey fryer, you can do this in batches.)
• Once mixture has cooled to room temperature, use a sanitized funnel to transfer cooled mixture to a sanitized 6.5-7.5 gallon fermenter. Using clean hands and sanitized utensils, add any flavoring ingredients you'll be using to the fermenter. Go easy on the flavorings - you can always add more later, but cannot take it away if you overdo it!.
• Using sanitized equipment, take a gravity reading. Keep track of the number! (This is an optional step, but will allow you to calculate your final ABV %)
• Sprinkle yeast into fermenter, cover with sanitized air lock. Let sit, undisturbed, overnight.
• Within 48 hours, you should notice fermentation activity - bubbles in the airlock, carbonation and /or swirling in the cider must. This means you're good to go! Put the carboy somewhere cool (not cold!), and leave it alone for a month or so.
• Using sanitized equipment, rack the clarified cider off the sediment, into a clean, freshly sanitized 6.5 gallon carboy. Cap with sanitized airlock, leave it alone for another 2-3 months.
• When you've let it clarify as much as you have patience for - with no more sediment being produced - you can move on to bottling:
• For uncarbonated cider:
• Using sanitized equipment, take a final gravity reading, then rack the cider into clean, sanitized beer bottles, and cap them. Allow to age for a month or so before drinking. (Like wine, the flavor improves with age!)
• For naturally carbonated cider:
• In a small pot, mix together 1 cup of water with 1 cup of sugar or brown sugar. Use a sanitized funnel to pour this into a sanitized large carboy. Rack the cider over into this carboy, swirling it as you go. Bottle cider as described in the previous step. Allow to age at least a month or two - residual yeast will ferment the added sugar, carbonating the cider.
• Alternatively, you can rack the cider (without the added sugar syrup!) into a keg and force carbonate it, if you have the set up for that. That's what we did with our last batch, and blew through it pretty quick during the tornado clean up! Chilled hard apple cider is just what's needed for that sort of thing, LOL!
• Enjoy.. and start planning for next year's batch(es)!

HARD APPLE CIDER

Steps:

• crush and dissolve campden tablets in a cup of warm water and mix well with the FRESH apple juice in your primary fermenter.
• Let stand over-night. Mix in all other ingredients except yeast making sure everything is dissolved, then sprinkle yeast over top of juice and cover with plastic sheet and ferment 3 to 5 days.
• Rack (siphon) into secondary fermenter and attach air lock.
• Rack again in 3 weeks.
• When all fermentation is finished, rack into a clean vessel and add 2 oz of white sugar and gently stir well.
• (I usually put the sugar into a bit of water and dissolve it first by boiling it in the microwave) When sugar is well mixed, bottle and age 3 months.
• This will give you a crisp, carbonated hard cider.
• * the more sugar you add, the more alcohol you will get, but the longer it will take to ferment. I would recommend from 1/2 to 1 pound per gal/4.5 l and not more than 2 lbs.

HARD APPLE CIDER

Steps:

• Other items you'll need: Stock pot, stirring spoon, 1 gallon glass jug, rubber stopper with hole for airlock (available from your local home-brew shop), Airlock (also available from your local home-brew shop), enough bottles to hold one gallon of your cider (screw top bottles that have already held carbonated beverages are ideal.).
• Pour about half of the cider into the stock pot and heat to 80°.
• Stir in honey and continue to stir until honey is completely dissolved.
• Remove from heat.
• Cool the cider to 75°.
• Funnel warm cider into 1 gallon glass jug.
• Add enough of remaining cider to fill jug (with 3 or 4 inches of space left at the top.).
• Add yeast.
• Place stopper and airlock on jug.
• Let the jug rest in a cool dark place for approximately a week.
• Fill screw top bottles with cider, then let sit for 2 or 3 more days in that same cool dark spot.
• Refrigerate and drink!