Wine, Beer, Cheese, now Cider!

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Erik Rodriguez

Active Member
Joined
Oct 29, 2018
Messages
43
Reaction score
8
I have been doing some looking into making Cider, mostly from requests from coworkers. Looks pretty simple and straight forward. Also looks like I can use everything I already have. I have read through the sticky notes in this forum. Is it really that simple? Any step by steps out there?
 
The sticky pretty much covers it.

Step by step...
Get juice
Start your yeast
Add nutrients if you desire.
Pitch the yeast
Wait for it to ferment to 1.000 or there abouts.
Rack from the Lee's
Cold crash to clarify
Rack again
Enjoy your creation.

It's literally that easy.
 
Yep, all of the above for cidermaking 101.

Then you might want to move to cidermaking 102 etc... 101 is fully fermented still cider, so like me (and others) you get sucked in to adding flavours (like cherries or hops) or trying to make sweet carbonated, etc.

So, I suggest a couple of things to be aware of and help you on the way...

-Get a hydrometer so that you can tell what is going on, such as what ABV you might get and when fermentation is finished.

-Wine doesn't taste like grape juice so cider doesn't taste like apple juice (but it does have some nice appley notes) so set realistic expectations.

-If you want it sweetish like some of the commercial ciders, stop fermentation at SG 1.010 or below (see the sticky on stovetop pasteurisation. Around 149F for 10 minutes seems to be the current benchmark).

-Some yeasts may stop at 1.002-1.004 and leave some slight sweetness (I have found this to be the case with SO4 and WLP775), whereas others (particularly champagne yeasts) can be brutes and ferment quickly, blowing off a bit of flavour in the process.

- Slow (time) and Low (temperature) is the way to go with fermentation.

- The answer on almost everything is available if you trawl through the forum. And if you want to get into detail, splash out and spend 30 bucks or so on Jolicoeur's book "The new cidermaker's handbook".

... and most of all, have fun.
 
I have been doing some looking into making Cider, mostly from requests from coworkers. Looks pretty simple and straight forward. Also looks like I can use everything I already have. I have read through the sticky notes in this forum. Is it really that simple? Any step by steps out there?

If you want a crash course on the ins and outs of cider making I suggest this book:

https://www.amazon.com/New-Cider-Makers-Handbook-Comprehensive/dp/1603584730

However it is very in-depth in some areas and can be complex for a beginner. Since you've done the wine and beer thing before you should have no issue with it. One drawback, I found, is the lack of information about certain aspects (one example I can think of is nutrients). But with this forum and some web searches you can get some answers pretty quickly.
 
Back
Top