In my back yard, I have an apple tree. We’re not big on apple pie and apple sauce every day, so I was thinking about making cider. It’s a little late this year for me to get started, so I have put the word out to my family that I am looking for investors in my quest to purchase a chopper and press (catalogues for ~$600 total, but I think with a little effort, I can find one cheaper). Also, I have to check the cost of ingredients and whatnots. Finally, I have to make a commitment to actually do it. I was all gung ho on trying to brew beer a year and a half ago, and I’ve got all the equipment still on loan from a friend, I just haven’t gotten motivated. Something always seems to come up that prevents me from dedicating a 4-6 hour chunk of my day getting set up and actually cooking up a batch. Maybe having the in-laws who helped lay down the capital for the equipment pestering me for some of the finished product will be incentive enough.
What is making cider like? Like I said, I’m in the R&D stage at the moment, so any info will be appreciated. Is it much different than brewing? More or less labor intensive? Expensive? Will my one tree of mostly (80ish%–the rest are macintosh or something along those lines) golden delicious apples be enough of a stock?
We have a small cider press, a tabletop model, but haven’t used it in years. If you are talking about making fresh cider, it’s a fairly straighforward process of putting the apples in, squishing them down and collecting the juice out the bottom. If I remember correctly, we did some refinements like chopping up the apples fairly coarsely first to get more juice, and having the apples inside a muslin bag which strained out the big chunks and made disposal of squished apples and clean-up easier. If you press outside, you will be swarmed by bees, so don’t. If you get too much to drink within a week, it freezes well…we just used plastic milk jugs…small ones, not the gallon size.
If you are talking about making hard, fermented cider, I have no clue. The fresh stuff has always been fine enough for me!
The key is balance. All one type of apple makes a boring, flabby cider. You need to have about 50% sweet apples, 35% high-acid apples, 10% aromatic apples, and 5% astringent apples for a perfect cider. You can play with these proportions to fit your tastes. A mix of Rome Beauty, Gravenstein, MacIntosh and Crabapples in the above ratios should be wonderful.
If you want to use the apples from your tree, you will have to purchase the other juices. Other than that, the process is simplicity. Mix the juices, add in 1 cup sugar per gallon juice, add yeast, place in sterile carboy, affix airlock, wait.
You can use different sugars to play with the taste. Honey and cinnamon are good additions, as are different fruit juices like raspberry and cherry. Add some tannin powder for tang, and add some chopped raisins for a sherry-like note.
I have some ciders around the house that have aged quite nicely, but it is best fresh.
Oh, and there are lots of cider presses on eBay for way less than $600! As to yeild, I have no recollection, but I don’t think golden delicious have very flavorful juice…we always added a variety of apples from a local orchard.
I am thinking mainly of hard cider, but would be willing to make a few gallons of soft cider for the kidlets. I’d guess I just reserve some from the fermentation process, right?
Yeah, $600 is from a brewers/winemaking catalogue. I’m sure if I look around, I can bring both pieces into the $400 total or less range. Is a chopper even a necessary expense? Seems I can just have the wife just chop them in halves or quarters before pressing, if she wants to enjoy some of the finished product…
Having just spent the better part of a day on a mash that went nowhere, I was just lamenting to my wife about how much easier cider is than beer.
We have apple trees, too, and I do love doing stuff myself from start to finish, but on the cider front, I have to say: if you have a farm near you, buy some fresh cider. (I’m in upstate NY, so cider’s easy to come by). Buy it unpasteurized. The pasteurized kind tastes like boiled cardboard.
From there on, it’s a piece of cake. Take a hygrometer reading to make sure you’ll have enough sugar, then throw it in a fermenter with a packet of champagne yeast.
Wait a week until the bubbles drop off, rack off onto dextrose (for carbonation), bottle. Wait a month (the hard part!), then enjoy.
