cider

[Mrs Ava]

Anyone ever made any?  I have more apples than you could shake a pear at and am fast running out of ideas, freezer room, and jam jars!

[Mrs Ava]

[Crash]

I made some quite a few years ago. It's a bugger to clear. It's ok if you want it with bits and cloudy.

[Mrs Ava]

But how did you make it??  ;D

[Orfy]

The basic is apple pulp or juice, sugar (optional) and yeast
Some people add camden tablets to the apples to sterilise any nasties.
Leave to ferment then bottle with a little sugar to add the fizz.

Here's one recipe

12 liters of unpasteurized apples (nasties cut out and then blended)
7.5 liters of apple juice (from frozen concentrate: apple juice, water, ascorbic acid)
2 kg dark brown sugar (raw cane sugar + molassas)
1 kg of clover honey
2 packages of Lavin EC-1118 yeast

[blight]

This is how cider is made around here:
you need cider apples. dessert apples have not enough acid and make for a dull,
tasteless cider, that won´t clear.
you mash the apples
extract the juice
fill the juice in a cask or some other container.
leave a little room for expansion.
put a (?) on the casket to to allow co2 to get out and prevent air to get in. (don´t know the english name.)
leave in a cool place to ferment throgh.
fill the container up to the brim with some finished cider.
wait till clear- usually january.
drink.
or fill in clean bottles and cork.
no camden tablets are necessary.
no yeast- there are natural yeasts sitting on the apples already.
no sugar.
ripe, tart apples is all that should go into cider.

[timf]

try http://www.homebrewtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?s=04b177f8a5b7d2b0befc0f5d4e0b1be1&f=32

for some recipes

[AikenDrum]

As blight has said, eating apples are useless for cider ... I have occasionally mixed them with cooking apples to give it some tartness ... however, I would suggest making Apple wine instead, to make it at this time of year you would need to buy/steal or borrow the usual winemaking equipment  ... it's problably best used though as an ingredient in a mixed fruit wine .. blackberries, elderberries, rhubarb or mix it with raisins, sultanas to give it body and high alcohol tolerance ... also .. pay attention to the yeast you use. It's an old book, but J.J. Berry's book's on home winemaking have few equals even to this day. His son has also written a few books though he leaned more towards beermaking  ..However, I still prefer the Elder Berry's books  ... how often do you get a chance to use a pun like that ! ! !    {:¬)#

[redimp]

(?) = spile


oooh - me first drink post.

Haven't made booze for years - OH used to moan about the mess and smell.

[Diana]

EJ - I've made loads of cider, but tend to use easy methods such as:

Chop (by hand or food processor) about 8 - 10 lbs of apples - any will do, discard any really bad bits, but a few brown soft bits don't hurt the finished product - into a large fermenting bin or bucket.

Put in the peel and cores as well.

Pour over 1 gallon slightly warm water, and add 2 large handfuls of sultans, raisins, or other dried fruit. (this is not essential,
but helps to give a bit of "body" to it; works equally well with or without the dried fruit).

Set one tablespoon dried yeast (I use ordinary bread yeast) with one tablespoon sugar and warm water in a jug, and leave to
froth.

Meanwhile add 1 1/2 - 2lbs sugar to the bucket of apples and water; stir to dissolve.

When the yeast is working, add to the bucket, stir well, cover with tablecloth or large towel and leave for about 10 days or so.

Press down the fruit and stir well every day.

Strain the liquid and put into demi-johns; ferment out like wine, then bottle or barrel.

Ready to drink in about 4 - 6 weeks

Tastes great but sometimes very potent - be ware!

D :)

[spacehopper]

Thats a great recipe diana. I'll be having a go st that.

[Derekthefox]

I rarely get significant amounts of apples, but when I do, this sounds tempting ...

Derekthefox :D

Just as a postscript, I tend to put my finished products into plastic pop bottles, no exploding mess if the fermentation hasn't quite finished ...

[derbex]

E-J,

as many different types of apples as you can find, include a few eaters and some crabs if you can. This is what I did last year : Wash the apples in sulphited water, bash them up, add a teaspoon or two of pectolytic enzyme (from homebrew shop) -this does 2 things; it stops the haze and it helps the juice come out of eaters, add a campden tablet (crushed -or 2/gallon) to the pulp and  leave it for 24 hours. Now press or squeeze the pulp -or you could ferment the pulp as is but it might get messy, if you want to be sure of a decent fermentation add a wine yeast -if you want to take a chance don't bother (you may end up with better cider) -if you want an extra kick add some suger (I didn't bother -it's still stronger than beer). If you're fermenting juice it should be in a DJ with an airlock, if it's pulp in a bucket for a few days and then strained into a DJ.

Turned out perfectly clear and mostly tasted pretty good (one of the fermenting bins had a bit of a strange soapy-perfume smell which I foolishly ignored).

I used the sloes from the sloe gin in one bottle and we had this mulled at bonfire night -excellent :)

lots more on http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~gunning/scrumpy/makingit.html

or for the technically minded

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/andrew_lea/frameset.htm

Jeremy

[Mikewinemaker]

hello

I been cheating atmaking apple wine, using apple juice bought from stores.

I've not yet got plenty supply of apples, so thought it an easy option to make some wine, especially when the juice was on offer at reduced price.
I read somewhere you can't hard cider 100% apple juice, as the additives in the juice rot. So not able to just leave the juice to ferment, I added sugar and yeast, in demi johns.
Works really well, producing clear apple wine.

Variations included the use of: citric acid, camden tablet, finnings, (light) pressure filtering and concentrating through boiling.



 

[Derekthefox]

This must be the cheapest way to make cider or apple wine from bought ingredients ... with a litre of supermarket juice at about 40p per litre, that is £2 for a gallon, plus a bag of sugar ... less than £3 for a gallon of wine - 50p a bottle!

Derekthefox :D

[Mrs Ava]

Have just caught up with this thread....I don't often have cause to come into the homebrew section of the site as I don't really do any significant home brewing!  ;D  Anyhow, to update you, and thanks for all the info, I will be more professional with this seasons windfalls, the juice is in a beer brewing bucket and after a week or so it frothed up and formed a hardish crust.  This started to crack and break and settle.  I guess I should now skim it, or decant it off, it smells wonderful, cidery and appley...... Been in the bucket for 3 months.....do you think it will taste horrible?  No sugar, no yeast, just pure apple juice - a mix of cookers and eaters.  I followed an ancient recipe I found....am I likely to poison myself???  :o

[Diana]

EJ, you'll either have the best cider you've ever tasted ;D or vinegar >:(

A quick taste will tell you which way it's gone - let us know

D

[Derekthefox]

I agree with Diana, there is only one way to know  :)

[derbex]

If it tastes OK now I'd get into into a DJ - EJ -or bottle it- anything to keep the air out from here on in. Demi John would be safer but plastic bottles should be fine -treat like elderflower champagne.

Jeremy

[Blacksmith]

Hello ! Just joined up, wondered if anyone was interested in making their own wine/cider press ?
http://www.downsizer.net/Projects/Processing_Food/Making_a_simple_cider%10wine_press/

Off to catch up will the info on the site............... back in a few days ;D
Dave

[Mrs Ava]

Okay, home made cider was actually home made paint stripper!  As bad as a bad thing can get!  Think I will stick to jam.