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Cider
Simple Cider (to make 4.5l) by Peter Laycock.
A very easily made dry cider which is slightly acidic to the taste and can easily be adapted/modified as required, I find adding the petals of an aromatic, fully opened rose, picked on a good sunny day, can be added around day 4, giving a little subtlety to the bouquet and flavour.
Ingredients:-
4l Apple juice (Supermarket type, no added
chemicals or sugar & avoid anything with “drink” in the name)
50g sugar
(see Notes below)
5g (1tsp) Pectic enzyme
2.5g (1/2 tsp) yeast nutrient
**
Wine yeast (white Champagne is best but any wine yeast will do, even
red)
1) Pour 1l of apple juice into a demijohn, add
the sugar after dissolving in a small amount of warmed water (250ml or less),
add the pectic enzyme, yeast (** nutrient probably will not need adding as the
juice should contain sufficient).
2) After 1 day add 1l apple juice, repeat
on days 3 & 4. All the juice could be added on day 1 but this gradual
process possibly gives more flavour. (See AWARD WINING WINES by Bill Smith -
Nexus Special Interests, for further information.)
3) On the last day make up
to about 4.7l (this allows for wastage).
4) Ideally the cider should
now be racked (siphoned off the rubbish or "lees" at the bottom of the demijohn)
into a clean demijohn or, if you do not have a second demijohn, a sterile white
plastic bucket can be used, the contents are then returned to the demijohn after
it has been cleaned. Keep the demijohn in a cool dark place for about a
fortnight to allow more sediment to settle out before bottling.
5) Bottle in plastic "pop" bottles with 1
rounded tsp sugar per 500ml & keep warm for a few days for the bottles to
get "fat" with the secondary fermentation. If glass bottles are used then reduce
the sugar to a maximum of 1 level tsp for safety reasons.
6) Store somewhere
cool for at least a month before sampling.
Notes:- This cider would typically have an O.G.
of around 1038 and a F.G. of around 998, giving about 5.6%
Stronger
versions can be produce by adding extra sugar during stage 1, each extra 50g of
sugar provides about 0.5% alcohol but do not sacrifice quality for alcoholic
strength!
I usually make cider at the same time as I make
a wine, just re-hydrate the wine yeast in a small amount of water as per the
Manufacturers instructions, add an equal quantity of apple juice after 15min and
again 1hr later, this working yeast can then be equally divided between the wine
& the cider, preferably after a further 30min to an hour (not at all
critical).
Note that if you use the YoBrew
Calculators, the calculated Final Gravity is only an estimate and can easily
vary a couple of degrees each way, similarly the O.G. can vary depending on the
actual sugar contents of the ingredients used. Also note that hydrometers are
not 100% accurate.
The instructions below are the old style very strong country cider.
Country Cider by Mrs. Gennery-Taylor
"For the best cider, a mixture of different varieties of apples is best. Those usually chosen are non-keepers, small sour or windfall, with, if desired, a few crab-apples. An odd rotten apple in a large number is permissible, but otherwise they should be sound.
Before the Second World War, my historical searches tell me there were traveling cider presses in some districts, as many farms and cottages had a small orchard. This practice seems to have disappeared, though it may still exist in a few country areas.
To get your apples pressed ideally, a cider factory is the thing, if you can persuade them to do it. Alternatively, a cider factory might sell you newly pressed apple juice. For those who cannot find a cider factory, you can buy a fruit press from your local specialist shop.
The juice should be put into a wooden cask - a 30 gallon ex-brandy cask is ideal for first-class good keeping cider. Base your calculations on the fact that a ton of apples makes approximately 150 gallons of cider; therefore a cwt. makes approximately 7.5 gallons. Any good size wooden or plastic cask is suitable but the larger the better as fermentation goes on longer in a greater quantity of juice, thus producing a high alcohol content. The cask should stand in a cool place either on its side or end, wherever the bung hole is uppermost.
Never bung up the hole while fermentation is still going on; unless to bring the cask home, perhaps! After about forty eight hours the apple juice will start to ferment and white froth will bubble up through the bung hole. This will continue for about three weeks when fermentation has almost stopped, some juice should be siphoned out of the cask with a short length of sterile clear plastic pipe. The amount of juice removed should be sufficient to dissolve the required quantity of sugar.
Add 2 to 4 lb of sugar (depending on how sweet you want the cider) per gallon in the cask to the juice you have removed, and dissolved over heat. When quite dissolved, allow to cool, and then return to the cask. Owing to the addition of the sugar all the sweetened juice will not go back in at once. During fermentation, which will go on for about two weeks, the quantity of liquid in the cask reduces so that you can add the surplus gradually (as space permits). When fermentation has nearly finished, if all the 'juice and sugar mixture' is not in the cask, siphon out enough juice to allow this to go in. Bottle what you take out and use to keep the cask full while the cider is maturing -- as the quantity reduces during this process. Developing airspace in the cask will otherwise allow bacilli to breed and turn the cider acid.
When the juice has completely ceased to 'bubble up' bung the cask up tightly with either cork or wood, and leave for eight months.
Cider is usually made in October - November, and should be left as long as possible - up to two years before opening it, but at least until the cuckoo sings the following year. Then the cask may be tapped, or the cider bottled down with care.
Innocent to taste but powerful -- up to 15% alcohol can be achieved."
I have not changed any wording so as not to lose the spirit of her text. Clearly there are parts that need updating as we are likely to use food grade plastic not "alas" wooden casks".
The yeast is naturally on the apples. This is the traditional method one could take some risk out by adding a prepared yeast culture (champagne yeast).
There is an interesting point and that is it does best in large quantities. This is also true of regular wine production. I'm not likely to pop down to the super market for a ton of mixed apples but maybe a group of us home brewers could club together to reproduce this vintage cider.
Perry (pear cider)
Dry perry
(pears) / cider (apples)
firm but juicy pears
So, your apple/pear tree
is overflowing and there is only so much you can eat. Well you can always brew
them!
Ingredients
sour apples (cider) or firm but
juicy pears (perry)
1) Choose your fruit make sure you avoid bad ones
2)
Leave them in a warmish place for several weeks until they are just beginning to
soften.
3) Chop and smash the fruit into a pulp
4) Strain through
muslin, pressing very hard so that all juices are extracted. A fruit press is
best for this but that an expense we'll try to avoid.
5) Keep this juice in
the pan in a warm place.
6) Allow to bubble.
7) When bubbles rise to the
surface of the liquid and the sediment drops to the bottom, put into a cask.
(Please note this recipe is country style where
the natural yeast on the fruit is relied upon to ferment the extracted juice.
This can be risky as who knows what yeast there is on your apples. Some less
country minded folk wash there apples very well and add brewers yeast to the
extracted juice to ensure that all is well)
8) Once bubbles stop and
the brew is in the cask cover tightly.
9) Leave for 6-7 months
10 Strain
and bottle.
Q) What is hard
cider?
A) HELP Required! I have
detailed my understanding but as I am from the UK and it’s been a while since I
have been to the US or Canada I would appreciate and email confirming or
correcting my understanding. Email:
Please drop
me a line.
Hard cider is not a term we use much here in the UK. In some parts of the US they refer to non-alcoholic apple juice as cider. To distinguish between non-alcoholic apple juice and alcoholic apple juice they called the one with alcohol "hard cider". Then just to confuse things even more you can distil fermented cider of around 7% alcohol to be a 40% version. Much harder and I think it’s still called hard cider. Drinks such as apple jack are more popular in the USA. I have not seen this on sale in the UK but know it’s got a strong following elsewhere. This type of drink is sometimes made by back woodsmen with a home made pot still.
So to recap my understanding of what I think the Americans and the Canadians call different apple drinks.
|
Alcohol percent |
US / Canada term |
UK term |
|
0 |
Cider |
Apple Juice |
|
5-7% |
Hard Cider |
Cider or old the world term Cyder |
|
10-14% |
Apple Wine |
Apple Wine |
|
40% |
Hard Cider |
Apple Brandy |
WARNING: Distilling is a skill of its own and if
not done correctly can be very dangerous. The alcohol fumes can blow up home
made stills, and the end result if not done by an expert can be very toxic
resulting in blindness.
If you know what you are doing and if it is legal
then please don't let me put you off.
I though I would try out Amazon's new beta suggestions banner. It is supposed to look at the page text and make sensible suggestions such as books that go into the specific subject in more detail. This way the banner adds value to the site but when I tried it out it was a bit hit and miss. Sometimes it was spot on and sometimes wrong in a funny way. Anyhow I will see how it goes. If it is useful to YoBrew visitors then there is a bonus, YoBrew gets just over 5% of anything that is ordered when someone uses the YoBrew Amazon link, even if they use the link and buy something completely different. It all helps but I will readily remove the advertisements if they do not benefit YoBrew visitors.