Fermenting apples into hard cider

Photo by Rinck Content Studio on Unsplash

This is a note to self. You might find it helpful too.

Some things I've learnt about making apple cider:

• Don't let the apple mush sit for too long, it will start to taste vinegary really quickly.
• Use a variety of apples – some sweets and some tart from many trees to get a nice well rounded taste. If you use apples all from the same tree, you get a kind of boring, sometimes bitter taste.
• Don't bother using a campdon tablet to kill off natural yeast. There is so little of it, that it does not matter. If you do use a Camden tablet, don't add the cider yeast for at least 48 hours.
• Apples juice doesn't have much nutrients for the yeast while it's fermenting, so add yeast nutrients. Adding yeast, nutrients will also reduce the sulphur smell.
• Keep an eye on the cider while it’s fermenting and “rack” it as soon as the fermentation calms down. You don’t want it sat on the lees (scum at the bottom) for long.
• When racking the cider, don’t let it aerate — the extra oxygen will oxygenate the fruit that is in the juice and you’ll get bad tastes. Be gentle when racking.
• Rack again and again until the cider is clear. This also gives it time to round off in flavour so it’s less sharp and more palatable, and will reduce the sulphur smell. Let it sit in bulk for months at a low temp.
• Add a teaspoon of sugar to each bottle when bottling. Hopefully this will carbonate the cider as long as there is yeast left active in the juice. Probably better actually to make a sugar water mix and then add it to each bottle.
• To work out the alcohol content, measure with a hydrometer BEFORE adding the yeast and write the number down! Then once fermentation is over you’ll be able to measure the density again and use the two numbers to figure out alcohol content. You will not remember the first number. Write it down.
• If you want to drink the cider before it’s done, do aerate it — it will get rid of the sulphur smell.