Anyone making hard cider?

[gus]

As the title says, anyone making hard cider?? Any tips??

[BigV]

Just like mead, you can make a flat hard cider or a sparkling hard cider. The sparkling hard cider will leave less of a headache.

Just like mead, if you overdo it, it creeps up on you. Mead will give you the worst doggone headache you've had, and if you are greedy- the worst hangover. Cider has a high sugar content too, and it comes close to mead in terms of a headache and hangover.

If you can get Golden Delicious or Grimes Golden, that's a good place to start. My first cider was from the juice my mom decanted in the process of making apple sauce. Found out I could add some spice packets and it made the best "soft" cider I'd ever tasted. It fermented over a few days, and made alcohol, and that is how I got into making a hard cider.

If you want a nice sparkling cider with a good kick, I'd get a sweet mead yeast or if you want your sparkling cider closer to beer(like the hard cider you buy at the store)- I'd get a dry wine yeast.

I do not recommend any specialized beer yeasts. Screw them. A lot of them imprint a taste into the cider that is more reminiscent of skunky beer than a good crisp cider.

Sterilize your equipment well, you want it clean. Sterilize your bottles. Get good fresh corks for wine or beer.

Some people call their initial mix a starter, some call it musk. Way I learned it here in the hills, we call it a mash or musk. I always name my mash- I call it Herman or Gertrude or Walter or the dadjim mash. Get your juice- how much is depending on how big a batch you're making- and pour out a jelly jar's worth or up to a quart or a couple quarts if you're really going to town. Add your yeast. Seal it up with a new lid, if you can get the kind that will seal and pop without heat canning, they're real nice. Shake it good, like you were shaking paint. Depending on how good your yeast is, how aggressive it is, and how much air and how clean your jars are- you make see it start to work in less than a minute. Or if you're going for a low alcohol content, smooth cider- it may work in an hour take longer for you to start seeing bubbling. If you can get a lid that will allow gas to escape(typically will have a little bulb up top you fill with water) it gas will bypass the water and vent but oxygen won't go past it. Let it work.

Get your batch of juices, get your clean equipment, you can add extra yeast to speed things up, you can adjust sweetness with your tartaric acid, and you can add things for flavor- like mead.

Don't want a super sweet cider ? Tartaric acid is your friend. This can help you get a good Ph for fermentation, keep it less likely to develop bacteria.

Let it work for a while- 2 or 3 months or so, maybe more.

You can rack(if you don't want the thrush that will form on the bottom), decant, bottle.

Prepare for a hell of headache.

[Lavoy]

You know, this gives me an idea. We are rapidly creeping up on 4000 members. Sounds like something to drink at a get together to celebrate another milestone!?!?!?!?
Lavoy

[gus]

Thanks for the tips. I've been making wine and yesterday I pressed out about 11 gallons of cider. I've set aside 3 gallons for hard. Probably should have done less but....

I had some white wine yeast and put it in and it took right off. I think your suggestion on the acid is in order. I'm not sure if I want it to go flat or not. Might split the batch and take it both ways.
Gus

[jtrichard]

Lavoy only 4 more to go

[Lavoy]

Now only 3.
Lavoy

[shinnery]

Lavoy If you would just quit deleting the spammers and scammers we wouid have been there long ago!!! LOL
Bryce

[jtrichard]

dos mas

[Lavoy]

If I didn't delete all them, we would be at 40,000!
Lavoy

[Ray III]

I made hard cider for the first time this year. So did everyone else, it seems like! We had such a huge apple crop there was nothing else to do with them.

From my dad's junk pile I got a 30 gallon plastic barrel. (Most people use a 5 gallon pail, I tend to be pretty industrious!) Fill that up with water and bleach mix and let it sit for a half hour to sterilize, rinse well, fill with cider, allow to sit at room temperature. I jury-rigged an airlock to one of the bungs. Not only does this keep air out to avoid feeding bacteria, the bubbles let you monitor progress.

I used Lalvin 1116 yeast. Just ask for a wine yeast for cider at your homebrew store or buy online. You should also get potassium metabisulfite. This is a chemical that when added will generate sulfur dioxide gas which is lethal to bacteria. Use that while filling the barrel and wait a day before adding yeast. Follow directions closely on all packets. 60-65 degrees is ideal for fermentation, lower slows down the yeast, higher makes the yeast over-excited and it may produce stuff that gives you headaches.

After 2 weeks fermentation slowed down. You can let it sit for another month and have a nice simple mild cider, or add stuff for more flavor and alcohol.

At this point I drew off some cider, heated it to 160 in a pot, and added (for 30 gallons) 10 lbs brown sugar, 5 lbs raisins, and 4 oz cinnamon. However, cooking the raisins made them taste too strong, so next year I'm going to do 15 lbs sugar and 3 lbs cooked raisins. Let it cool enough so when you dump it back in the brew doesn't overheat and kill yeast. I also added a little over half the dose of potassium metabisulfite due to the air exposure. It won't kill the yeast if you go easy on it.

After primary fermentation is done, you'll only see about one bubble a minute in the airlock for a 5 gal pail or one bubble every 10-15 seconds for the 30 gallons. Let it sit for another month. During this time, most of the yeast will have settled to the bottom and you can leave it behind by siphoning into another sterlilized container using a sterilized plastic tube attached to a bit of copper tube that reaches into the container. This process is called racking. You should again add a bit of potassium metabisulfite during the transfer.

You can drink the cider now, but for best results, let it age. Some people let it go a month, some let it go a year. The container it sits in should be full almost to the top to exclude air, and it should be kept in a cool dark place.

For sparkling cider, after racking and before aging, bottle it up and add priming sugar. This will feed the yeast to generate more carbon dioxide, which is trapped in the bottle and dissolves into the cider. You'll have to look up the amount of sugar, as I was in a hurry and bottled before fermentation was completely over and got my carbonation that way.

You MUST use a pressure vessel for sparkling cider! I bought supermarket brand 3 liter soda bottles for $1.40 and dumped the soda out. Champagne bottles work too, but the plastic lets you monitor the pressure. Put it in a warm spot until the bottle is as hard as when it had soda in it, then leave it in a 60 degree spot for at least a week.

If you want to bottle still cider in ordinary containers, and it has not sat long enough to let the yeast peter out, add potassium sorbate to stop the yeast.

[gus]

Got it too dry but I put in some Potassium Sorbate to totally stop the bacteria and then added back some sugar. I haven't tasted it in a month but I will soon and probably bottle soon too.

[Paul Buhler]

I make apple wine(usually crab apple) similar to the way Ray does, using a 30 gallon plastic trash bin, sanitized, as my primary fermenter. I put the crushed or frozen fruit in a doubled nylon laundry bag for easier removal and squeezing. The metabisulphate is commonly sold as Camden tablets which are usually crushed prior to adding to the must.
When the first ferment slows, I hang the bag of fermented fruit to drain back into the barrel, then squeeze the final juice from the bag by hand squeezing or pressing in my cider press and then dispose of the fruit. I use a Clorox solution to wash down tools, hands, and other equipment - Rays comments on being sanitary are important - bacteria will ruin your wine ( I find beer making requires a higher attention to this than wine making since wine has more alcohol which inhibits bacteria growth.) I keep a Clorox soaked towel handy for my hands and dealing with any spills.
I rack my wine into 5 gallon carboys using a racking cane to get the wine off the lees (sediment that accumulates at the bottom of the barrel). This clears the wine and helps prevent off flavors. Wine can stay in the airlocked carboys indefinitely if kept dark and cool. I usually rack once more into a clean carboy, then rack into gallon jugs with plastic sealed caps (bought at a brew store) or corked bottles. Taste periodically, it gets better and better, and usually gets drunk before its time. Paul

[pop pop]

4k guys and booze, what could happen,,,