Hello,
Have made a a half-dozen batches of kit wine and would like to branch out. Recently got a great deal on a small press (you may have seen the post under the equipment forum asking for suggestions on cleaning/sealing). I was thinking about trying to make a batch of hard cider. Found a few recipes online but was curious if anyone had any simple (emphasis on simple) step-by-step suggestions on making a batch of maybe 3 gallons or so of cider.
Thank you in advance!
Colin
Hi Colin, and welcome to the forum. Some thoughts. Not really a recipe.
If I were making apple wine I would do exactly as Arne suggests but hard cider doesn't need to have as high a starting gravity as 1.090. The juice I get typically has a pH of about 4.5 and I try to reduce it to about 3.5 before I pitch the yeast. I know with mead there are few buffers and the pH can drop very low when fermentation begins but I don't think apples behave in this way. In any event I have not had any stuck fermentations because the pH was too low and so stressed the yeast.
I have been making gallon batches of cider simply using apple cider pressed at local orchards here in upstate NY and the natural sugar content means the juice is about 1.050 or about 6 percent ABV or thereabouts without any added sugar. If you make the cider in small batches you can experiment with different yeast: 71B, QA 23, Nottingham ale yeast, for example.
You may want to add bentonite to help the fruit particles drop out more quickly, but cider does not need to be as clear as wine.
I tend not to stabilize but after the cider has fermented dry I might add about 20 gms of sugar/gallon to the bottling bucket to make the cider a little sparkling. I tend to bottle in beer bottles and don't degas. Again, because I think cider tastes better with some carbonation. One of my friends adds maple syrup to backsweeten his cider.
If you can bear to store the bottles for about a year the flavors become much softer.
Last point, I don't crush my own apples but depend on the local orchards but I think you want to try to get a good mix of tart and sweet apples if you are pressing them. You might also want to see if you can get some crab apples too. I am still trying to replicate the cider I remember from my youth in Britain. It's a real challenge. I came close once but the cider was at an ABV of about 11 %
Oh, you may want to see if you can get hold of a lovely book on hard cider making by Drew Beechum (The Everything Hard Cider Book). It has just been published and he treats cider like others treat mead: the cider is a base to which you can add other fruit and spices and herbs. He provides 80 recipes all based on one very simple recipe.
