11/18/2010 How To Make Hard Cider

Link to Green Deane & Hard Cider on You Tube: EatTheWeeds.com

How To Make Hard Cider

In one week you can be
enjoying your own
home-made hard apple
cider with that great
authentic old-fashion
flavor.

CIDER HARD, BUT QUICK & EASY

by Deane Jordan
You can make hard apple cider the difficult way,
or the quick and easy way. I prefer the easy
quick way. I've made a lot of beer and wine,
including apple wine and a sparkling apple
wine. The hard part was getting a cider taste
rather than an apple wine flavor. And to be
honest I wanted authentic taste but I didn't think
I had to work hard at it; our ancestors didn't.

When I was a kid my family would go to a local

commercial orchard and buy bushels of
bruised apples for our horses. We always got
a couple of gallons of regular cider at the time.
But then my father would as k for some cider
from a particular barrel. That was the illegal
hard cider barrel — illegal in that it wasn't
taxed. I remember the flavor of that hard cider
well and when I made hard cider I wanted
something clos e to that authentic taste. It
wasn't aged much, it wasn't wine, and it wasn't
bubbly apple juice: It was hard cider with a
crackle. And I also know they didn't work hard at
making it. It wasn’t involved, fancy or difficult.
Here's how I make my hard cider:

On Sunday I buy a gallon of apple cider at the

health food store. It doesn't have to be organic
but the important part is that it contain no
preservative, such as nitrates or sulfides.
Ascorbic acid added is okay, and it can be © Photo by Deane
pasteurized. I pour off a half a cup of juice and Jordan

add a half a cup of starter (explained later.) I

eattheweeds.com/…/15_Cider_hard,_but… 1/4
11/18/2010 How To Make Hard Cider
put on a fermentation lock and put it in a warm

place. By Monday it's ferm enting vigorously. Friday I bottle it and put it back in the warm place. Saturday night I put it in the
frig. By Sunday, it’s cool and ready for drinking. If you let it age a week or two it’s even better.

Tas tes vary. I like my hard cider a little on the sweet side, so I let it ferment for only five days, no longer. This , of course,
may vary brand to brand. Some cider or juice may need to be fermented more or less depending on your pers onal tastes
and the sugar content of the juice. When I bottle I pour it into empty 16 oz plastic seltzer water bottles, and put the caps
back on. I let those set in a warm place until they are as hard as the bottles were when they had s eltzer water in them. As I
said, that us ually only takes a day here. Then it all goes in the frig. It can be drank immediately or over the next week or
three. Keep an eye on the carbonation and m ake s ure it doesn't build up too much and break the plastic bottle. The dryer
you like the cider, the longer you let it ferment before you bottle it and cap it.

Now let me back up and explain som e things. You can use champagne yeast and a store-bought fermentation lock, or you
can use wild yeast and a hom emade fermentation lock. I use wild yeast and a store fermentation lock, basically because
that is what I have on hand. Let me explain them both.

Using wild apple yeast is taking a chance that the yeast will throw a bad flavor. On the other hand, using a champagne
yeast can make the cider tas te wine-ish. I opted for wild apple yeast and there was an easy solution at hand. When I first
bought a gallon of organic cider at the same time I bought an organic granny smith apple. It could have been any organic
apple, but the key is it was an organic apple that should have wild apple yeast on it. I did not wash it. I took my apple cider
and apple home. I peeled the apple and put the peeling into the apple juice and put it in a warm, dark place. It took almost
two weeks for the yeast on the peeling to m ultiply to the point I could see bubbles rising in the cider. But by three weeks I
was on my way.

When I bottled that first batch of cider I kept the dregs, which were apple sediment, some juice, and a lot of yeast. I put that
in a two quart soda bottle, added a couple of tables poons of sugar, and kept it in a warm place, letting off the gas build-up
every few days. One can also store it in the frig long term. Now when I buy a gallon of cider, all I have to do is pour off a half
a cup of juice, add a half a cup of starter, and then put that half cup of juice into the starter bottle with a little sugar. That wild
yeast has produced very well for me for over two years.

As for a home made fermentation lock: Since you will be fermenting it only one to three weeks at the most — depending
upon what tas te you like with your local brand — you can make a lock out of two things: a large balloon with a pin hole in it,
or a piece of thin s andwich wrap with a pin hole in it held snug on the jug by an elastic band. Once the cider starts working
there will be an outflow of pres sure and that will keep any bad stuff out while the pin hole let's the gas escape. Balloons
are good if they are large enough to securely grab the jug's mouth. Otherwise they can fill with gas and pop off even if you
have a pin hole in it. Som etimes I use store locks and sometimes I use a piece of plastic. Balloons are really quite good
but they have to be big balloons and they tend to be hard to find. Plain condoms will work well, too, just don't forget to put a
pin hole in them and don't forget you can’t use then use them for other activities.

There is a certain amount of personal tas te involved with how long you let the cider ferment. It depends on how sweet and
how alcoholic you want it. The longer it ferments the more alcohol it will have and the less sweet it will be. If you let it
ferment for more than a month or so it will start to lose its cider characteristic and start to be more like a s emi-bubbly wine.
It will also take on a harsh flavor that takes a couple of years of proper storage to moderate.

While purist have a good point when they say only certain apples and certain solids in the juice make a true cider, it is a
continuum. Apple cider will become apple wine at some point. Hard cider is quick, lightly alcoholic, murky, and not harsh.
You can easily drink it in a week. Apple wine is clear, more potent, and takes years to make not days.

The best thing is to do first time out is follow the schedule. Whether you use an apple peel that takes three weeks to get
going or a teaspoon of champagne yeast, count your five days after you can see a steady stream of bubbles to the top.
(See the video on You Tube to see what vigorous bubbles look like.) Once you have a starter it works just as fast as dry
champagne yeast.

If you like the s ugar/alcohol levels of your test batch, then stay at five-day fermentation level. If you want it less sweet, let it
ferment seven days or then 10 or 14. You may have to add a little s ugar for carbonation if you let it ferment for more than
three weeks . With m y rich starter, my cider starts working within 24 hours and at the end there will always be a little
sediment at the bottom of your jug and bottles. It is harmless. You can drink it or add it to your starter.

And what of the cider m ade this way? It's very good. It is not rank. It is not on par with an English pub cider, but it's quick,
eas y and you can get consistently good res ults. You could just as easily do five gallons as long as you had the bottles to
put them in. If you don't want to use plastic bottles you can als o collect champagne bottles that will take a bottle cap. The
bes t way to get those is raid weddings. I us ed to go to hotels on weekend and rescue cases of empty champagne bottles
from wedding receptions . Unless you plan on corking them, only take the kind that take a bottle cap. Bottle cappers are
inexpensive and caps are cheap.

eattheweeds.com/…/15_Cider_hard,_but… 2/4
11/18/2010 How To Make Hard Cider

I have found this to be the quickest, easiest way to make good cider with minimal equipment and hassles. If you have any
questions, email me and I will do my best to answer them. While this focus has been on apple juice, it can be use with
any sweet juice with sugar. It would even work with plain sugar and water, though there wouldn’t be much flavor.

As far as brands ....the best flavor came from som e organic apple cider (Knuds on) at the health food store. But the price
jumped recently to $12 a gallon, which translates into about 85 cents a cup. Whitehous e apple juice locally is selling for $5
a gallon, the final flavor is good and the price under fifty cents a cup final product. Supermarket brands tend to be low in
sugar and produce dry or sour cider. No doubt there are some frozen apple juices that will work just as well. Once one has
a good starter yeast one can experim ent around.

And as safety measure: Never put a juice into you s tarter until after that juice has proven it is safe by beginning to ferment
first. Even a teas poon of juice with preservatives will kill off your starter yeast. I also have two starters that I keep going at
the same time just in case som ething does happen to one I still have the other.

By the way, don't put your hard cider into a freezer. Much of the water will turn to ice and the very drinkable liquid you have
left over is much stronger and is called hom e-made Apple Jack, which is illegal in mos t states because it hasn't been
taxed. Freezing it will accidentally m ake a 40% proof brew. Accidentally freezing a second time after removing the ice will
make it 80 proof.

Las tly, if you are using something like concord grape juice you might want to shorten the vigorous fermentation time to
three days ins tead of six to retain s weetness. Because of its intense muscadine flavor concord grape juice can taste sour
even with some residual sugar s o I only work it three days, comes out great. In fact, if I do Welches regular concord grape
juice three days with my starter, charge for a day, then refrigerate it tastes very clos e to a red lambrusco. I also do orange
juice and the like for shorter times than cider depending upon the sugar content. If one gets a sour batch, one can always
add sugar and s till bottle.

Oh, a little fact: John Adams, first vice president of the United States and second president, liked to start every day with a
tall glass of hard cider. He lived well past 90.

Addendum:

Once you have a batch of yeast you can use it with a variety of juices. If you use orange juice, low pulp is better, put it in a
larger container, and let it work for only about three days before bottling. Ditto Concord Grape juice. That is s o sweet it can
do s our fast, so it it work for three days and then bottle.

This web page is the property of Deane Jordan. All rights reserved.
< Previous Comm ents or ques tions about this site, or for permission to us e photos and
information, contact GreenDeane@cfl.rr.com Next >

Copyright 2008 Deane Jordan

eattheweeds.com/…/15_Cider_hard,_but… 3/4
11/18/2010 How To Make Hard Cider

5/15/34

eattheweeds.com/…/15_Cider_hard,_but… 4/4