I haven’t heard it called “perry” but pear cider is widely available in the US, especially from big bottlers like Ace, Wyder’s, and Angry Orchard.
Fresh cider is fantastic!
I’m getting more at the difference between the following:
Musselman’s 100% Apple Cider, Fresh Pressed, 128 fl oz Jug - Walmart.com
and
Martinelli’s Gold Medal Apple Juice with 100% Pure Apple Juice, 128 fl oz, 1 Gallon - Walmart.com
It seems to be a slight stylistic difference and that’s it. Or maybe it’s that the “cider” is pressed fresh, while the juice can be from concentrate. But both are shelf-stable, non-alcoholic, pasteurized products.
Our neighbor/friend could talk your ear off about fresh cider. Each year he blends the apples he uses according to the past year’s weather. It’s a real craft. Some years I’ll tell him I really liked the cider and we’ll talk about why it was better than usual.
In the UK, CAMRA (the Campaign for Real Ale) has a definition of “real” cider.
The Definition
CAMRA defines real Cider or Perry as being fermented from the whole juice of fresh pressed apples or pears, without the use of concentrated or chaptalised juices.
The word ‘chaptalised’ as used in the definition refers to a process where the alcohol level in a cider or perry is increased by the addition of sugar to an unnatural level for storage, before it is diluted with water to the desired alcohol content for sale.
So if I have this straight, if I buy a big ol’ jar of non-alcoholic apple or pear cider in the supermarket, and let it sit around a while, it will all by itself turn into an alcoholic beverage? Or I’m missing a few crucial steps (and a few crucial marbles)?
If it is unpasteurized and inoculated by airborne yeast organisms (which is hard to avoid).
I can’t speak to what’s available in your supermarket, but the local brand sold in my supermarket in the fall will readily turn into hard cider if i leave it sitting in the fridge too long.
I think it’s even been pasteurized. But maybe not at a high enough temp to kill yeast. Or maybe it gets inoculated with yeast in my kitchen, just by being there. I’m not certain.
How long is “too long”?
I like the idea of cider turning into hard cider. Does it make a difference if I refrigerate it or not? Will I speed things up by storing in my sun room (which stays a comfy 85-95 degrees F. year-round)? Can I move things along by putting anything into the cider–yeast, sugar?
I have never intentionally made hard cider, so I’m going to drop out. But I’ve unintentionally made tasty hard cider often enough that i assume it’s easy.
Also, is there a down side to “brewing” one’s own hard cider? That is, can it go bad in some way? The idea of letting any foodstuff get old is a bit scary to me, but it sounds as if that’s all I need to do to get hard cider–buy some regular cider, and wait.
I’d double-check to make sure that it doesn’t have any benzoates or other preservatives in it. But beyond that, you could very easily make your own cider from grocery store juice. You could even go so far as to order a packet of specific cider yeast and stuff like stoppers and airlocks from a homebrewing store.
But be warned; what you’re liable to end up with if you do it yourself from grocery store juice is a bone dry product without a whole lot of character. Apparently what makes for good cider isn’t what makes for good drinking juice. Kind of like how wine made from table grapes isn’t as flavorful as that made from wine grapes.
We did it in college using apple juice concentrate and wine yeast, and it was very aromatic, but super tart and dry. It was the kind of thing you brought out late in the party as the jungle juice ran out, if that gives you any idea.
Just like when brewing beer, you can get “bad” bacteria into your brew. Brewmasters I like will, for example, open up the skylights and invite bacteria to feast on their beer, creating a sour. I love sour beers.
It turns out that lactobacillus introduced into cider actually creates a less acidic and sour end product due to lactic acid turning into malic acid.
I have no problem with either sour cider or bone-dry cider. I’m trying to assess the risk of brewing something that will kill me. That, I have a problem with.
I’ve drunk all sorts of home brewed substances. Some great, some not so great. The only one that made me ill was a ghost pepper stout that tore up my insides, but I knew that would happen going in.
In high school, when alcohol was hard to get, we would buy the two gallon plastic bottle of cider and mix it with sugar and champagne yeast. We would put a balloon on the top to act as an airlock and leave it in the closet for a week. The balloon lock worked well but you had to release the gas every day.
It was a dry, bitter, hangover maker. It was like eating an apple with zero sugar in it. We took to mixing in a little sugared soda like a spritzer. It was cheap alcohol.
So you’re saying I’m not in for a sophisticated gourmet experience if I try to make hard cider out of supermarket cider?
You might, we weren’t.
We were going for alcohol content and low cost. We used a pasture champagne yeast. Fast acting, high alcohol content. We never stopped the yeast. You can cold shock, or chemically kill the yeast. You can add so much sugar the yeast will die before eating it all.
Following an actual cider recipe with store bought might improve the final product. It was relatively safe, we never had any mold form or have to toss a batch.
Yeah, i generally drink mine before all the sugar has been consumed, and it’s not a sweet beverage, but it’s not super-dry, either.
I don’t like to get drunk (or even tipsy) so my approach is more, “oops, this has started to ferment, better drink it now while i still feel comfortable doing so.”