Advice on making hard apple cider

[Deo]

For the first time I am trying to make hard apple cider. I am using pippin apples that have been bit from the frost. I juiced and filtered the apples. I put Cane sugar in the juice to increase the alcholhol  . I put the juice in wine and plastic bottles. I put baloons over the top and poked holes in them. I am trying to wild ferment the cider with out adding yeast. Does anybody have any more advice or recipes to help me out. I will probably rack them in a month and add more sugar to ferment more. OOOO it is starting to bubble, cant wait.

[beetlebailey1977]

I cant say anything about makin it, but woodchuck makes some good stuff.  LOL

[JW_Halverson]

Here's hoping your local wild yeasts were vigorous or else you are going to have some of the worst skank-juice you can imagine.  Next time you try this be sure to use a variety of apples, some tart, some sweet.  It will make a more complex taste in the end. 

Don't be afraid to use campden tablets to kill odd/wierd yeasts and bacteria, or to use "tame" yeasts.  After all, those yeast packets for brewing ALL were derived from the same wild yeasts out there.  Good luck.

[Bevan R.]

Just adding sugar will not necessarily increase the alcohol. Most yeasts can only tolerate at most 8 to 10 percent alcohol, then they go dormant or die. Champagne yeast is the only yeast I know that can tolerate higher percentages of alcohol.
Cane sugar is not the best to add. Corn sugar is much more neutral and will allow the flavor of the fruit you are using through, cane sugar tends to leave a 'taste'.
As JW says, best bet is to kill any wild yeasts and go with a known commercially variety.

Good Luck.

[JW_Halverson]

Cane or beet sugars will make a "winey" flavor in beers, but it works just fine in wines and ciders.  Bevan is right about the usual chanpagne yeasts going to higher alc levels, but the general wine yeasts will handle 12% as long as there are sufficient nutrients, home pressed applejuice should have plenty of that. 

A new company in the fermentation industry is producing yeasts that are tolerent up and over 20% alcohol.  They are known for brewing out stout 8% alcohol beers in 24 hours or less!  From what I hear there are some problems with odd flavors, but some people are more concerned about getting their heads bent outa whack than discerning good taste.  Those people also are known to shoot bows with wheels.

[Deo]

Thanks for the info, I going to make some more with fuji and pippin mix because that is what i could get for free, this is an expierment so i hope all gos well, next year I want to buy some commercial yeast and really give it a go also want to try pear wine, prickly pear wine and elder berry wine. My father grand father and uncles all make wine from grapes and wild ferment it comes out pretty good but they use concord grapes and the portuguesse drink their wines in about 3 to 4 months, not like store bought wine. thanks
 another question how long can i age it and does that change the flavors.

[Badger]

   I really have to go along with JW on the camden tablets and commercial yeast, if you are in the back woods it might be different. Too many crap yeasts and bacterias floating around in the air for all the work you are putting in. I use to use bread yeast and brown sugar for apple cider. I don't remember the hydrometer readings I was looking for but doesn't hurt to look them up, my favorite was just to distill alcohol and then fortify whatever I wanted to use it with. Steve

[JW_Halverson]

Most fruit wines drink better when they are young and rarely do they age worth a darn.  I had an incredible dry chokecherry wine that was complex, rich, and smooth drinking.  I aged the last half of the batch in bottles at proper cellar temperatures and the results were flat, bland, dull, and frankly worthless.

[Deo]

I got to say that my apple wines came out exellent, tasted like wine no bad after taste rather impressed will have to give it a go again.

[JW_Halverson]

Glad to hear it, Deo.  Were you able to actually keep your hands off it for a full year?  I noticed the original posts are just over a year old now. 

And more importantly, ya got any left?

[PEARL DRUMS]

Just so happens Im from an old German family and I grew up with sausage in my hand and cider in my bottle. Dad puts a 55 gallon barrel down each fall and we dont touch it again until mid winter. He adds ZERO to his mix. Its 100% apple juice. The barrel is an old seasoned whiskey barrel laid on its side. Dad has a rig on the top of the barrel that lets it burp. When the burping comes to a consistent stop..............drink up! I have had dozens of varieties because of the town I grew up in. Its an old German farm settlement and EVERYBODY has a barrel in the basement. I have had it with pears and oranges mixed in, whiskey added, rum added and many other combos. I have learned its all about the apples you use rather than the additives. The best cider I have ever had was 100% apple juice. Thats about all I know about it ..........properly prepared it should make you stumble after no more than two 16 oz glasses. in an hour

[JW_Halverson]

The best ciders are never from just one variety of apples.  The best varieties of apples used in cider making are always the apple varieties that just don't keep.  Winesap apples are mush about a month or so after picking, but there is no better apple to eat (in my opinion).  Red Delicious are only half right...they are red.  But they will last in properly refrigerated conditions for up to 18 months! 

Winesaps, Northern Spy, Gremmelich, Kingston Blacks, Trammletts, Pomonas, Pippins, Ord's...stuff you will never see in the stores because our modern food distribution system requires picking green, shipping across the country to be warehoused, shipped back across the country to a regional warehouse, shipped back again to a local distribution warehouse, and then shipped again to a local store.  By that time the apple has more miles on it than a high quality Goodyear tire....but doesn't taste near as good.  The reason the apples we see in the grocery store are there is because they STORE well, not because they are good. 

Let's all go plant a few heirloom apple varieties this spring and make a better world.  'Sides, deer are attracted to windfalls. 

[mullet]

The deer here don't know what an apple is. I've watched them sniff one I cut up and threw under my stand and walk away.

[JW_Halverson]

The deer here don't know what an apple is. I've watched them sniff one I cut up and threw under my stand and walk away.

Dem's dang dumb Disney deer down dere.

[MWirwicki]

Hey Drums!  I have a small apple orchard on my property.  The little woman makes applesauce, I make apple pies but, do you suppose you could teach me the apple cider "craft"?  Oh, I guess now that I'll be looking for a whiskey barrel now, too...