Brew Cheap Cider
This is a quick, simple and a brilliant recipe for people into home brewing, but before reading the steps, please look at the "things you'll need" bit.
Steps
- Sanitize all of your equipment, especially your Carboy, either with some sterilizing solution or with hot, soapy water--but make sure you don't damage the Carboy. An excellent sanitizing solution is 2 tbs (un-perfumed) bleach per 5 gallons of water.
- Rinse Carboy and pour in apple juice. After rinsing out the Carboy to get rid of the soap or sterilizing solution, pour the apple juice into the Carboy.
- Put the 500g of Tint Sugar into the heatproof jug and fill it up to about a liter with hot water from the kettle, stir until all the sugar has dissolved then add it to the apple juice
- Add the yeast and put the rubber bung and air trap on. Remember to fill the air trap just under halfway with water
- Leave for a few days.
- Using your hydrometer, ;;;wait until it has a SG level of 1030;;;, then you add the finings and wait until all the yeast has settled to the bottom and the cider is crystal clear.
- Be sure to get rid of all the yeast. If you have the benefit of a wine filter you should use that to get rid of the last remnants of yeast but don't worry if you don't because all it means is that you have to be a bit more careful when siphoning the cider off into the large vessel, e.g. a bowl or saucepan, but remember to keep the yeast at the bottom of the Carboy if you want to try secondary fermentation.
- Now it's time to bottle your cider, by simply siphoning the cider into sterilized bottles which you can sterilize like you did with the Carboy. if there is any left over just drink it or put it in a smaller bottle.
- You can now either enjoy your still cider or try to achieve secondary fermentation which will be explained now. ===
- Put a few teaspoons of sugar into both bottles, then just a little bit of yeast from the Carboy and screw the caps on tightly, leave for several weeks and Voila you have fizzy cider!
Tips
- If you want to experiment a bit, use 3 liters of apple juice as a base then 1 litre of whatever you want. This will produce a fruit cider, but try to avoid anything that contains citric acid because it will affect the yeast's growth.
- Elder flower cider is just the same as the regular cider, but you add dried clovers after adding the yeast.
- If you fail miserably and have a sharp tasting cider that is unpalatable, congratulations! you have just made cider vinegar which can be used for cooking.
- If you want sweet cider, put some more sugar in when your hydrometer reads SG 1040.
- If you want to put the cider in smaller bottles, for example beer bottles you only need one teaspoon of sugar per bottle and even less yeast to achieve secondary fermentation.
Warnings
- Remember to sterilize your Carboy after using it as well as before using it to avoid mold growth.
- Watch out for the yeast sediment if you tried secondary fermentation.
- When selecting juice to make cider with look for all natural or preservative free juice because the preservatives in some store bought juice can inhibit the yeast growth and fermentation.
- Be sure to sterilize all of your equipment anything that could come in contact with the cider must be sterilized This is very important to making good cider we want to remove all of the bacteria and natural yeast from anything that will be in contact with the fermented cider or you risk contamination "aka bitter cider".
- If you tried secondary fermentation drink the cider within a few months because it will continue to brew and you don't want 4 liters of cider vinegar on your hands
Things You'll Need
- 4 Liters of apple juice which you can buy from most supermarkets
- 500g of sugar
- 1x sachet of wine yeast
- 1x pound of sugar
- 1x 1 gallon Carboy A.K.A. "demijohn"
- 1x rubber bung and air trap
- 1x siphon
- 1x hydrometer
- 1x heatproof jug
- 1x kettle
- Some sort of large container that can hold a gallon for example a bowl or a saucepan
- 2x plastic 2 litre bottles with a screw cap (remove any labels)
