Good Hard Cider Recipe?

Anyone ever make hard cider and have a tasty recipe to share? I have a friends Bday coming up and that's her beverage of choice.

Theres some stuff on youtube by that craig fella. Just look up coopers brewing kit and hes the white haired guy. I dunno if thats what your looking for but seems easy enough

I just followed the caramel apple cider recipe in the recipe database. Haven't gotten to try it yet but it was pretty freakin simple!

apple juice + notty.

crash cool and rack to keg when it hits 1.010 - 1.015

leave it in the fridge for ~1 month then carb to 2.5ish and drink

there's a lot of recipes in the recipe forum here on HBT. cider's pretty easy if you want it to be. get some cider with no preservatives (no potassium sorbate, etc.) add sugar, i prefer brown, to the cider until you reach your desired OG. i also like to simmer some cinnamon sticks in some of the juice. you can use ale, cider, or wine yeast to ferment it. after it's done fermenting, use some potassium sorb ate to stop the yeast, and at bottling you can back sweeten with juice, sugar, honey or a wine conditioner. for a carbonated cider, skip the k-sorbate and use an artificial sweetener to backsweeten. i always just back sweeten to taste in the bottling bucket.

I use Whitehouse apple juice. I throw 4.5 gallons in the keg, add yeast (Notty, S-05, Cider Yeast, or Champagne Yeast all work....I perfer Notty or S-05). I connect a blowoff tube to the gas disconnect and ferment at about 64F for 3 weeks.

After three weeks, I cold crash the keg at 38-40F, add the extra 1/2 gallon of juice to backsweeten, let it sit for a few days, then force carb.

That's it! My cider is always GOOD after a few days of conditioning in the 40F kegorator, but GREAT after about 2-3 months of cold conditioning.

Just note that if you bottle, you can't use my process. Sweetening bottled cider is a PITA in my opinion, so I wouldn't even bother.

TopherM said:

Sweetening bottled cider is a PITA in my opinion, so I wouldn't even bother.

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for sure! unless you're going for a still cider, it's tough to sweeten a naturally carbed cider.

I did a dry cider for a friends birthday, she's a cider lover, barged my own recipe aiming for dry flavor, higher ABV, and amber color:

2gal Apple Juice (Trader Joes)
1lbs Dark brown sugar
8oz honey
1tbsp yeast nutrient
1tbsp pectic enzyme

I usually use Montrachet after brewing Apfelwein a couple of times to get dry as possible but I fermented this out using Safbrew's T-58 ale yeast which is known for it's spicyness, took it as far down as it wanted to go without backsweetening. Turned out pretty good! Carbed up nice, a little bit on the lethal side but we've been sipping it via wine glasses. Definitely something different.

brewchick3 said:

Anyone ever make hard cider and have a tasty recipe to share? I have a friends Bday coming up and that's her beverage of choice.

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Be sure and check out the Cider Room for a multitude of recipes and help!

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/

brewchick3 said:

Anyone ever make hard cider and have a tasty recipe to share? I have a friends Bday coming up and that's her beverage of choice.

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Brandon O's Graff, from the Cider section of the HBT recipe database, is simple to make and turns out great. No back-sweetening or long aging process required to get to a drinkable product, which can be an issue with traditional ciders.

Does anyone know if Stevia is fermentable? It's natural, super sweet so it wouldn't take much. I tried lactose to back sweeten my last batch, but didn't like the flavor. But if Stevia is fermentable it won't work for sparkling cider...

Haven't tried it, but I've previously read on the forum that Stevia is not fermentable.

Thanks Jim, I guess I'll give it a try!