Hi I'm Tricia an organic gardener I grow organically
for a healthy and safe food supply for a clean and sustainable environment
for an enjoyable and rewarding experience
Hard apple cider is a traditional early American and European drink
thats easy to make I'll show you how To make hard cider you're gonna need the
following
two glass gallon jugs or polyethylene buckets
a stopper an airlock four to six feet of plastic tubing
an auto siphon brewing yeast and brown sugar or honey
Optional tools to have on hand would be a wing capper
and a hydrometer This beer brewing kit contains all the equipment that you'll need
including
the optional equipment If you want to make cider with your own apples check out our
video on making sweet apple cider for details on processing apple's
and blending the flavors Making hard apple cider can be really easy
or it can be as technical as making a fine wine Today we're going to use a
process that's a little bit middle-of-the-road
but where the cider still tastes really good Everything that comes in contact
with your cider must be cleaned and sanitized
use an iodine rinse-less sanitizer like this Star San
Iodine is more effective than bleach
and it won't give your cider an off flavor make sure and follow the
instructions exactly
The old fashion way to make cider relies on the native yeast already
present on the apple's
but that can yield inconsistent results and sometimes your native yeast taste
great but sometimes it doesn't
We will be using this Nottingham ale yeast to make our cider taste great
To start out you'll need one gallon of apple juice
without preservatives and if you can find one from a local farm stand
thats even better if it's not pasteurized you'll have to pasteurize it
You can pasteurize your homemade sweet cider by heating it up to one hundred and sixty degrees
fahrenheit
and then cooling it Don't let it go over one hundred eighty-five degrees fahrenheit
because that will give it a cooked apple flavor The Nottingham is a dry yeast
so I need to rehydrate it before adding it to my cider Add one ounce of yeast per
gallon of cider
to four ounces of warm water To liven up the yeast
let it sit for fifteen minutes Now that everything's clean and sanitized
this is the time that your hydrometer can help you brew If you've pasteurized your
juice once its cooled
you can check the specific gravity it should be between 1.045
and 1.050 if its lower
then 1.045 it won't be stable
you can add 2.25 ounces of brown sugar or honey
to bring it up to five points This gives you a cider with about six percent alcohol
Pour your cooled and pasteurized sweet cider with the yeast into your primary
fermenting container
Try to aerate the juice as much as possible at this point
putting your air lock and stopper that you filled with sanitized water
After putting the airlock stopper in it's time to let the fermenting begin
the yeast will do its job Just store the juice for about two and a half weeks
in a cool even temperature location:
Our cider has turned into hard cider so now it's time to rack it into a secondary
fermenter
and this is going to be done at 1.005
on the hydrometer A few days ago I put my cider up on the counter
to make sure that I don't get any sediment when I rake the cider Make sure you
clean and sanitize
everything that youre gonna be using for racking Attach your tubing
to the auto siphon and then put the other end into your sterilized
fermenting jar Start the siphon and watch carefully
leave about an inch of cider above the sediment don't be greedy or you could
ruin the whole batch
and put a little in a glass to taste You also want to set some aside so that you
can test the alcohol level
After sterilizing the airlock and stopper
your gonna put it in the secondary fermenting jar At this time give your
cider a taste it should be strong and bitter
at this time it's gonna go through lactic fermentation to mellow
without all the sediment You can let it mellow for one to two months
or you can rack it again after that and let it age for three to four months
The minimum before bottling is three
weeks
When it comes to bottling you have options you can leave it as a still dry cider
like I'm gonna do or you can add a sweetener and carbonation
and there's instructions on how to do that on our blog Sterilize the bottles
that you're going to use
you can use beer bottles as long as they're not the twist of
twist on type If your doing a still cider
you can use these nice swing top bottles You wanna rack your cider one more time
and don't worry if it's a little bit cloudy that's just natural
apple goodness Once you've finished racking the cider
fill your bottles leaving one inch of headspace Plant a pear or apple tree
make some hard cider and grow organic for life