Homemade Hard Cider
Tips, Recipes and History
This page is currently under construction so please check back soon!
Background
Hard cider is an alcoholic drink made from the fermentation of apple juice. Sometimes hard cider may also refer to the fermented juice of pears, but really this is perry not cider.
Although it is unknown when people first began intentionally fermenting apple juice, cider as we know it today has been produced for at least 1,000 years. Between the 10th and 12th centuries, hard cider was more widely produced in Europe than wine.
Cider was first introduced to the Americas immediately following the arrival of early colonial settlers. During the 18th and 19th centuries, the majority of the US apple crop was used to produce hard cider. According to Kirk Dolan, assistant professor at Michigan State University, the average person living in Massachusetts during the late 1760’s drank around 40 gallons of cider per year. The second president of the U.S., John Adams, drank a glass of hard cider every morning with his breakfast.
Hard cider remained popular in the U.S. until around the mid 19th century. The Industrial Revolution brought with it a large influx of German workers who preferred beer compared to the English who preferred hard cider. With the large influx of German immigrants, the popularity of beer over took that of hard cider.
Hard cider in the U.S. was almost unheard of for quite some time following prohibition. However, in recent years hard cider has been growing in popularity in the U.S. Today there are many commercial varieties available such as: Woodchuck, Hornsby’s, Woodpecker, Strongbow, etc.
However the cider currently produced in the U.S. is a bit different from that enjoyed in it’s earlier days. The two main changes in modern cider are carbonation and sweetness. Traditionally cider was enjoyed still—without any carbonation. However with the rise of carbonated soda, it seems that people have grown to prefer sparkling cider—with carbonation. Cider has also become markedly sweeter. In traditionally brewed cider there was very little residual sweetness as nearly all the sugars were converted into alcohol. In modern hard ciders chemicals known as sulfites are added to stop the fermentation process as well as concentrated apple juice to create a sweeter beverage.
Cider is also becoming increasingly popular among homebrewers as it is easier and cheaper to brew in small quantities than beer (Hopefully that’s why you’re visiting this page.) As a whole however it seems that homebrewing in general is really taking off in the USA. Homemade wine (especially from wine making kits) is becoming more and more popular as is beer making (again beer making kits are partly fueling this.) Making hard cider also seems to be enjoying a bit of growing popularity commercially as the price hops, the beer making supply which bitters the beer, has been growing costly lately because of poor crop yields.
How to Make Hard Cider
Cider is probably the simplest of brewed beverages. Making cider is far easier than making wine or making beer. Unlike beer, you can probably brew a nice batch of hard cider just using supplies from your grocery store. However, having beer making supplies from a good homebrew supply shop certainly won't make your homemade brew any worse. The supplies needed to make beer generally require a visit to a homebrew shop because grocery stores don’t typically have things like hops or malt extract on hand.
If you have no special brewing supplies, but want to try making your own hard cider, then you should start by visiting the page How to Make Hard Cider.
How to Make Mead .
Another good page with some info on making hard cider is Haunted Bay Hard Cider.
A few tips on how to make hard cider....Don’t worry about using fresh pressed apple juice to start with. As the article at the first link above mentions store bought apple juice will work fine. Some web sites will tell you that juice from the grocery store will not ferment, but rather rot. This is simply a rumor created by companies who stand to profit from you....
For example Leeners’ web page (http://www.leeners.com/cider.html) quotes, “Cider purchased at the super market will almost always contain preservatives and will rot before it will ferment.” Conveniently on the same page Leeners advertises their apple press for only $459.95! If this is your first time to make homemade hard cider, stick with the cheap stuff. THAT SAID, YOU STILL MUST PURCHASE 100% APPLE JUICE WITHOUT PRESERVATIVES WHICH CAN EASILY BE FOUND AT YOUR GROCERY STORE.
If however you would like to try making homemade hard cider using the natural yeast found in apple juice you will probably want to use fresh unpasteurized apple juice. In this case, store bought apple juice will not necessarily ferment as the pasteurization process has probably killed all the natural yeast. For more information check out this Natural Cider recipe.
How to make hard cider at Digg.com.
Drinks Mixed with Hard Cider
Blue Woody
1/2 Pint Woodchuck or Woodpecker Cider
1/2 Pint Blue Moon
Slice of orange
Snake Bite*
1/2 Pint Hard Cider
1/2 Pint Guiness
Morning Wood
1/2 Pint Hard Cider
1/2 Pint Leine’s Sunset Wheat
(I don’t know why it’s called Morning since
it’s Sunset Wheat not Sunrise Wheat!)
Black Bird
1 Pint Woodchuck Cider
1 Shot Blackberry Schnapps
Baked Apple
1 Pint Hard Cider
1 Shot Cinnamon Schnapps
More to Come....
Many More mixed drinks with Cider here.
Making Applejack From Hard Cider
Applejack is a sweet apple liqueur made using a primative method of distillation by freezing. The process called jacking is pretty simple: Alcohol has a lower freezing temperature than water so if you freeze hard cider around the freezing temperature of water, you can remove some of the water and thereby increase the amount of sugar and alcohol per volume.
Traditionally this was done by simply making a large batch of hard cider and then letting it freeze outside during the winter. To really make this work well you need to insulate the container that the cider will freeze in so that it freezes slowly. The best way to do this is to leave a barrel of it in your barn wrapped in several blankets. Eventually you will find that the barrel has a block of ice floating in it. The liquid in which the ice is floating is the applejack. This doesn’t work too well in a freezer because all the vibrations from the compressor prevent the alcohol and water separating.
There is a little bit of legal grey area about jacking. While it is illegal to distill alcohol, the issue is a little more complicated with jacking....There is no law prohibiting you from storing your homemade hard cider (or beer or wine) in your barn or garage during the winter....And it’s legal to enjoy your homemade alcohol any time of the year you want....Can you really help it if some of your hard cider freezes and some doesn’t? Even if you bottle it up, how can anyone prove that it isn’t some crappy Jungle Juice mixture of hard cider and Everclear you made for a party and bottled the left over? If you do try it, don’t be stupid. It’s illegal to sell any alcohol without the proper permits. So if you make applejack, you’re probably fine as long as you only enjoy it with your family and friends.
