Found some lovely cooking apples in a sheltered wee valley at the weekend, and having made a batch of apple crumble I'm now wondering if it is possible to make a simple cider? Or should I stick with what I know and just keep making crumble (had some for brekker this morning :-)
Some points to note:
1. I have never made any sort of wine or cider before, so idiot-proof advice would be much appreciated.
2. I'll need to acquire any equipment needed - we were going to borrow some old winemaking kit from my boyfriend's parents, but they gave it away to their postman a few months ago!
3. I've begged some sweet eating apples from my parents (as I believe you need a mix of sweet and sharp?). I have two carrier bags full of apples now (but could fairly easily acquire more if needed)
You need something to extract the juice - a juicer will do.
You need something to ferment the juice in, preferably with an airlock. This will probably be the main expense. (If you have a large bottle or tub with a narrow-ish opening, you can cover it with a double layered teatowel and then secure that with rubber bands. I've used one-gallon pickling jars to make homebrew in this way in the past.)
You need yeast. Less than a quid from one of the home-brew websites - champagne yeast is good, while cider yeast is pretty obvious. But you can make do with bread yeast, too.
You need bottles. Clean, plastic screw-top fizzy pop bottles will do.
If your fermenting vessel hasn't got a tap, you'll need a length of clean, plastic hose to siphon the cider from the fermenter into the bottles.
Extract the juice and pour it into the fermenting vessel. Taste the juice, it should be sharp, acidic, sweet and with a bit of tannin to it (like a cup of tea). Lemon juice can up the acidity, sugar or more sweet apples will up the sweetness, cold tea/cooking apples/crab apples will help up the tannin.
When the juice tastes right, sprinkle the yeast over. Cover the top of the fermenter loosely with a teatowel and leave overnight. Then stopper it with an airlock and leave in a warm place for a few weeks.
When the bubbles have stopped, siphon or tap the cider into the bottles, adding a teaspoon of sugar for fizz. Make sure you don't get the lees (the gunk!) in the bottles.
Leave for another couple of weeks (or until the bottles stretch!), then refrigerate and drink. And you have fizzy cider.
It won't be the greatest cider, but it will be reasonably strong and probably better than a lot of the cheap cider that many students drink!
Last edited by Stonehead on Tue Oct 31, 2006 8:53 am, edited 2 times in total.
If you're short of juice, snaffle another's student's apple juice and pour it in. You want the stuff that's sold in the refrigerated section and doesn't have preservatives in it (preservatives kill yeast). Cloudy, organic apple juice is best so raid the rich students' fridges!
Hello Scrake, out of the two you should go for Stoney's recipe - I've tried the one we've got up on the site before and it's way too sweet.
Gonna give that a go this year too Stoney so will also let you know how it goes.
Dave wrote:Hello Scrake, out of the two you should go for Stoney's recipe - I've tried the one we've got up on the site before and it's way too sweet.
Gonna give that a go this year too Stoney so will also let you know how it goes.
You mean you have tried my batch of ciderish Yep I would second that perhaps we should either take it down or put a note on it that it is not the best recipe.
dibnah wrote:In the words of Stonehead my cider mentor " all perfectly normal."
Beat me to it! Cheers.
PS Opened the first of my six sample bottles on Saturday from the first batch. (I use Budweiser bottles as they're a good size for samples, but not for a proper drink! I open one a fortnight to check the progress.) The last of the sediment has dropped out and the cider is a lovely clear gold. The cider itself is quite pleasant if a little sweet for my taste, with a nice bite and pronounced apple taste. The OH declared it excellent - which proves it is girly cider as she can't stand my full-strength scrumpy.
We juiced using a domestic juicer (bargain on ebay for a fiver)
Day 1: Very brown and ugly
Day 21: Clear and tasty
We made eight Grolsch bottles full, and hopefully they'll come a little fizzy. The cider passes the taste-test, with two out of three housemates declaring it yummy. Dryish, and almost wine-y in strength, as far as I can tell. Boyfriend isn't so keen on it, but he's not a cider drinker.
Thanks for all the advice, we may be hooked on this homebrewing lark. Any suggestions as to what to try next?
