Hi everybody I'm Jeff from Northern Brewer I'm here in the beautiful classroom for
Northern Brewer's Minneapolis store. Today we're going to talk about
how to make hard cider the easy way. We're going to do it in 3 simple steps.
The first step is all about cleaning and sanitation.
Cleaning is the most important part because it helps to remove any organic soils
from the surface of your fermenter. Sanitation is really key because it helps
to kill any kind of living yeast or microorganisms that might
end up affecting the flavor of our cider down the road.
Northern Brewer carries a couple of different products
that work really well. One is going to be easy clean,
and another is one step. These products will help to clean and sanitize,
and they do it all in one easy process. We get questions all of the time about dish soap.
Can we use dish soap for cleaning and sanitation? You can, but it is not typically recommended
because dish soap is going to have an aroma to it and maybe be oil based.
Those oils can get into your fermenter, and create a film,
and sometimes a residue that could end up in your final product.
So, let's get started, let's clean everything up.
[Water running]
[Slow motion cleaning sounds]
[Water spraying]
Now that we have cleaned and sanitized our fermenter,
it's time to move onto step two. Step two is all about selecting your juice.
You don't need to own an orchard in order to make hard cider.
You can use any store bought apple juice or even an apple cider.
But there are a couple of things that you want to be aware of.
Look at the label. A couple of things are important.
You are going to look at whether the juice is pasteurized or not.
Most juice you get from the grocery store is going to be pasteurized.
I recommend getting a pasteurized juice, because it ensures that there are no
living organisms or wild yeast already present in the jug.
One other thing you want to look at. Turn it over and look at the ingredients list.
You are going to want to make sure that your cider,
or juice that you are using is not going to be stabilized.
Now stabilized is not a word that you'll see on the label,
but one thing that you might see is sulphite, you might also see sorbate, or benzoate.
These are all stabilizers that help to prevent fermentation.
For juices that you are going to drink without any alcohol in them,
as you get them from the grocery store. That's great.
But if we want to ferment these juices we need to make sure that there's nothing
that is going to inhibit the fermentation of the yeast
we pitch into the fermenter.
Step three, pitching your yeast.
You have a couple of options you can use.
Some of the more traditional yeasts that you might look at,
one is Wyeast 4766. It does a great job to ferment out all of the sugars that are available.
Gives you a nice cider character, without giving too many additional flavors.
Another option you might have, is by the White Labs company.
This 775 by White Labs is an English cider yeast. Very clean dry fermentation,
and really nice for your traditional English style ciders.
One of my favorite options that I like to use is the
Red Star Cote des Blancs dry yeast. I find that this yeast give a little
bit of residual sweetness which I like.
It does ferment out completely dry, and retains a nice
apple character in the end. So if you are working with specific varietals
this is a great yeast to help draw out that specific flavor.
Some other options you might consider might be, a Belgian ale yeast, maybe an English ale yeast,
and of course white wine and even red wine yeasts will work great for this application.
If you want to try something a little but funky, and give it a little bit more character,
you can always try maybe a French Saison yeast like Wyeast 3711,
or you could even move into one of the more sour cultures
like the Wyeast Roeselare blend. That is going to contain to contain Saccharomyces,
Lactobacillus, Pediococcus, and also Brettanomyces.
Your apple juice is probably going to ferment to 4% - 5% alcohol if you don't
add any additional sugar. If you would like to
boost that alcohol a little bit, you have to add some more fermentables.
You can do this a couple of different ways, you can use either priming sugar / corn
sugar / bottling sugar in a larger quantity if you would like.
A couple of pounds in a 5 gallon batch would boost your gravity a couple
of percentage point probably. You could also use table sugar.
Keep in mind the corn sugar and table sugar which is sucrose
doesn't have a lot of character to it, so you are going to get alcohol,
but you are not going get a depth or complexity.
If you are looking for more depth and complexity, you might try brown sugar, which is cane sugar,
or you might also try a Belgian candi sugar, which is going to be more of a beet sugar,
and will give a little bit more flavor profile as well.
Some other considerations you might make, maple syrup is very common, and if you
wanna give it a nice twist, maybe try some Agave syrup.
If you would like to look into adding some fruit, or maybe some spice into your cider,
you have a couple of options there too. Fresh fruit is always going to be the best,
but you wanna make sure that you are not adding too much wild yeast that might
be on the fruit already. Some options that you have to avoid that
would be using any of our purees, or any of our fruit bases.
Some nice flavors that go along with the apple cider
might be apricot or pear, cherry or even black currant.
If you are looking maybe at adding some spices, you have some options there too.
Some things that work really well might be candied ginger, maybe some vanilla bean,
and also perhaps some cinnamon sticks.
Most ciders on the market are carbonated,
and you can carbonate yours as well by adding a small amount of priming sugar to the bottle
just like you would to bottle condition a beer, and then waiting 1-2 weeks for
that carbonation to build up.
If you prefer a sweeter cider,
I recommend letting your fermentation finish out all the way,
and then back sweetening it with some kind of sugar or
maybe a wine conditioner. You can also use
additional apple cider or even honey. If you are curious about back sweetening,
and especially carbonating a back sweetened cider, check out Brewing TV episode 67
for a lot more in depth information about how to accomplish that.
Alright, let's get started, add some juice to our fermenter,
and pitch some yeast.
[Cap Opening]
[Rapid Juice Pouring Sounds]
[More Rapid Juice Pouring Noises]
So today we'll pitch the Red Star Cote des Blancs.
[Fast Forward Yeast Sounds...]
Now that I have filled up
the fermenter and pitched my yeast, we are going to wait 1-2 weeks.
Your fermentation should finish out in about that much time.
At which point you can go into packaging in bottles.
So let's recap. Step number 1, clean and sanitize.
Step number 2, select your juice, put it into your fermenter.
Step number 3, select your yeast. Pitch that into your fermenter.
In one to two weeks your fermentation is going to be finished,
and you will be ready for bottling. If you are bottle conditioning add your sugar
and wait another one to two weeks. Cider made easy in three steps.
Cheers.
Woahhh, that one's tart.
[Coughs like a Minnesotan]