brew my own cider

I’m in the process of my first batch.

I’m not using any kind of quality yeast, but since it is my first batch my goal really is to prove to myself it can be done. And considering I’m a broke college kid I doubt I’ll care much about the quality anyway.

If this first batch works out I’ll probably make the next one a bit more “professionally”.

Anyway the prep was fun, and so far the brew is bubbling along nicely. All systems are go. And for 5 bucks it can’t go too far wrong.

Wow was that good. I opened a bottle last night and I really liked it. I was worried that it would be too strong and there would be no apple taste or sweetness left. It is very strong, but it does taste good too. Unfortunately the cider did not carbonate so maybe next time I need to make sure I add some priming sugar before bottling but it really was good.

It’s been in the bottles in the cellar all this time. I moved two bottles into the refrigerator. I’m looking forward to seeing how it came out. At the end of September I am going to open them and give them a try.

A brewer I met down the street told me when he brews cider he throws some dried cherries in to give it some taste and absorb some of the acids. He said that has worked very well for him. I am hoping to make some more cider this fall if this batch comes out well.

I bottled the cider today. It’s been about 3 weeks in the secondary fermenter and It really has a nice taste. I’m going to see how long I can stand to leave it in the bottle before I open one. I’m hoping it carbonates well.

I added 1/2 teaspoon of dextrose to each bottle and when I did it foamed up and overflowed a little. I didn’t really measure but it’s fairly strong.

I tried measuring the gravity of the cider prior to pitching the yeast. I got a reading of about 1.110 but it’s not completely accurate as the 1 gallon jug was not deep enough to let the meter sink as far as it could have. I’m guessing that I can easily get at least 8%abv out of this. I’m sure it could go much higher, but I doubt the ale yeast would tolerate it.

I’m told that in other countries cider is alcoholic here in the US we have cider that is basically apple juice and we have what we call hard cider. That is what I’m talking about.

For some reason I’ve had a hard time finding info about fermenting cider, but what I’ve learned is that most cider naturally has enough sugars to ferment to about 4 or 5% abv. This would leave a fairly dry cider and low alcohol. I’m going to experiment with 1 gallon of cider.

I plan to boil the cider for about 30 minutes to kill any wild yeasts that may be present and possibly concentrate the sugars a little. In addition I plan on adding 1 cup of clover honey. This should raise the potential alcohol and give the finished cider a sweeter taste.

I’ve just bottled my first ever batch of apple cider, I tried to make pear cider before using wild yeast. All I can say about that is don’t bother trying, kill all the bacteria and wild yeasts using campden tablets and use a bought yeast.

My batch came to about 10 litres, and was made from store bought juice and about 10 kilos of apples that I picked up for $4 (AUS).

I had a few problems with yeast, the first load of yeast was killed one day when the weather got up to 42°C. The next sachet of yeast must have been dead before it even started. The final batch of yeast did the trick once I put some yeast nutrient in.

All I have to do now is wait for it to mature.

Started the cider saturday. cant wait to try it

http://www.mit.edu/~dfm/brew.html

my favourite drink is apple cider so it’s only natural that i’m interested in brewing my own :)