Cheap Hard Apple Cider

I'm planning to brew up some apple-cider on the cheap in about a week, and I thought I would take someone else's advice and post on here to get some opinions before I went through with it.

I'm new to this, so I did some research here first. Links below.

Currently I have a beer in my (only) ale-pale, and another in my (only) carboy. So I want to try to do this with as little equipment as possible.

GOING TO BUY:
-Apple juice (w/o preservatives)
-Brown Sugar
-Champagne yeast

METHOD:
1) pour out a cup or so of apple juice from the container I purchased the Apple juice in. Add brown sugar. Mix.

2) Cover but I won't tighten completely

3) Wait 1-2 weeks

4)Tighten lids

5) Wait 2-4 weeks


BUT...I'm not sure if taking a few more steps might produce a much better result, so ...I have a lot of questions:

• 
  How much brown sugar would be appropriate to add? 2 cups/gallon?
  
  If I want to bottle and carbonate, when should I do that (after 1 week?)
  
  Would it be worth buying a $3 home-depot pale and lid? If so, how does one make an airlock? Just drill a hole? (I tried to search for this, but couldn't find an answer...I'm not "handy" myself, but I have access to some tools).
  
  What's up with raisins? I've read a few links where people added them.
  
  Would it be "worth" bottling? I have some corona bottles but I don't want to waste the caps on something this cheap (and potentially bad).
  
  Would it be worth putting it into empty soda containers?

Well, those are my thoughts this morning. I should probably hurry up and get to work! Thank you everyone in advance. I love this site so far! I've been spending tons of time here!


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/entries/cheapest-way-to-make-cider.html

http://aikihomestead.blogspot.com/2009/08/apple-cider-in-four-steps-and-two.html

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Cider_making_Process

EdWort: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f25/man-i-love-apfelwein-14860/

Might wanna move this to the cider forum.

I followed this recipe and it turned out great. Of course you can do anything you want. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/5-day-sweet-country-cider-265986/

I would go and pick up the bucket and lid well worth the investment, pick up a grommet and some hosing. drill a hole fit the grommet insert one end of hose place other end securly in a jar of fluid (sanitizer, vodka ect) and walla you are good to go.

^^ I also have tried the 5-day cider recipe with success. I can get cider in 1-gallon glass jugs, which works great for a quick-and-easy process. I use 1/2 pound sugar (or brown sugar, or honey), and go 5 days fermenting, 2 days carbing up in bottles, then pasteurizing on the stovetop.

I also have heard about raisins, I think they add nutrients for the yeast. But I just use yeast nutrient. I also just use ale yeast, which I tend to have on hand, instead of wine yeast.

Also, we have a grocery store nearby with a European-ethnic aisle (German, Polish, Scandinavian, etc.) with a wide selection of interesting preservative-free fruit syrups, which can make great accents to whatever you are aiming for.

Cheers!

Try my little Wal-Mart beauty

MC

Do you intend on making a dry, British style cider, or a sweet, Woodchuck style cider?

I never add brown sugar to my ciders. All that will accomplish is drying the cider out close to 1.000.

I find that MOST newbies attempting to make cider have a sweet cider in mind, while most techniques out there lead to dry, English style ciders.

If you do want to make a sweet sparkling cider, you will need to backsweeten (which is a PITA if you bottle, a snap if you keg), and definitely leave out the brown sugar.

So which are you trying to make?

TopherM said:

Do you intend on making a dry, British style cider, or a sweet, Woodchuck style cider?

I never add brown sugar to my ciders. All that will accomplish is drying the cider out close to 1.000.

I find that MOST newbies attempting to make cider have a sweet cider in mind, while most techniques out there lead to dry, English style ciders.

If you do want to make a sweet sparkling cider, you will need to backsweeten (which is a PITA if you bottle, a snap if you keg), and definitely leave out the brown sugar.

So which are you trying to make?

Click to expand...

As you guessed, I had a sweet cider in mind. But I really was thinking "cheap and easy" and "different than the beer kits".... you would recommend going against the brown sugar then?

noblebrew said:

I followed this recipe and it turned out great. Of course you can do anything you want. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/5-day-sweet-country-cider-265986/

I would go and pick up the bucket and lid well worth the investment, pick up a grommet and some hosing. drill a hole fit the grommet insert one end of hose place other end securly in a jar of fluid (sanitizer, vodka ect) and walla you are good to go.

Click to expand...

Thanks! that recipe looks good.

(from link)

4 gallons fresh, unfiltered pressed apples (uv pasteurized)
1 1/4 lbs brown sugar
2 cinnamon sticks

1) Pour 3 1/2 gallons of juice into fermenter
2) Heat remaining half gallon with cinnamon sticks and brown sugar until sugar dissolves properly. Let cool to room temp.
3)Combine mixtures and mix vigorously to oxidize.
4)Hydrate and Pitch yeast.

-Let ferment for about 2-3 days, or until it hits 1.04.
-Bottle it. No need to rack of clear, this stuff is going to be cloudy no matter what you do to it, as it hasn't really fermented that far. it may help, however to give it a day in the fridge to get rid of excess yeast. I didn't do this though.

Let it sit in bottles for a day or so to carb, then bottle pasteurize. I did this by using my sanitize/rinse setting on my dishwasher of 10 minutes, but you can also do it on the stove (see stove-top pasteurization sticky).

Result:
A sweet, hard cider at about 5% abv that keeps a lot of original cider flavor, and is just a tad more tart and dry than the unfermented version. Definitely looks "rustic" due to its cloudiness. Cheers!

Click to expand...

This sounds really do-able. Step 4 says to "hydrate"...what does this mean?

Also, I had planned on using either plastic brown PET bottles that someone gave me from a Mr.Beer kit or old soda bottles...if I put them in the dishwasher for 10 min, will the bottles survive?

noblebrew said:

I would go and pick up the bucket and lid well worth the investment, pick up a grommet and some hosing. drill a hole fit the grommet insert one end of hose place other end securly in a jar of fluid (sanitizer, vodka ect) and walla you are good to go.

Click to expand...

Sounds do-able...I might try it.

Misplaced_Canuck said:

Try my little Wal-Mart beauty

MC

Click to expand...

This does sound good...but also beyond my skills. I don't even have a keg ;-) ...soonish, I hope!

Adding the brown sugar is going to make it more dry, less sweet. Definitely skip.

Here's what I do to make cider that is almost spot on Woodchuck/Strongbow sweet cider:

5 gallons White House Apple Juice
1 packet Nottingham Yeast

Combine 4 gallons apple juice and yeast in fermenter, ferment 2-3 weeks, rack to keg over remaining 1 gallon White House Apple Juice and get down to serving temps to stop yeast activity, force carb at 12-14 PSI for two weeks, ENJOY!

The problem with bottling is you can't add sweet juice pre-carb without doing anything else, because the yeast will eat it. That's why backsweetening bottled cider is a big pain. You either have to use artificial sweetener (yuck!) or add the apple juice and monitor it closely to figure out when they are at the proper carb level, then put the whole batch in the fridge to stop yeast activity or the bottle pasteurizations step the guy outlines above.

Anyway, there are a few ways to get sweet cider in a bottle, but they are all pretty crappy options, IMO.

hmmm, well, if they are all crappy, then I guess I won't be doing a sweet cider. Thanks for the heads up. To be honest, I'm just trying it out to see how it goes. I don't have a keg...I'm trying this out for a little experience w/o equipment. Thanks again for the info!

Soo, I gave 'er a go tonight. I used this idea:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/5-day-sweet-country-cider-265986/

I "made" my own brew bucket out of a home depot bucket and a grommet. I think it should work well.

I had two gallons of Wal-Mart apple juice. Heated up a bit of it. I put some cinnamon in the mix then realized I did have a stick, so I added that too. Put in about a pound of brown sugar. Let it cool down a bit. Added a little cold water to speed the cooling process then dumped the two gallons and heated-up-now-cooled mix. Stirred it up good and added the yeast (champagne). Mixed it again and put the lid on. It'll be sitting in the basement (I'd estimate around 64-70 degrees).

Thanks for all the help. I'll probably keep updating this thread in the hope that it helps some other noob like me.

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with Topher. I bottle-carb all my cider and it's not hard to sweeten them at all. You have a few options.

Option 1 is to use a sweetener that does not ferment. Artificial sweeteners like splenda (BOOOOOO) do this, as do non-fermentable sugars like lactose (YAAAAAAY) and non-sugar sweet glycols like Stevia (I have yet to try this; Stevia has a bitter taste as well which may not work well but a couple people on this board seem to like it).

Option 2 is to use regular sugar and careful planning. The theorycraft goes like this:
-If you make cider without too much added sugar then let it ferment dry you will still have a yeast population largely unimpacted by alcohol content
-Therefor, you can basically ferment any new sugar about as normal
-BECAUSE of this, you can sweeten your cider in such a way that you get carbonation before all the sugar is consumed.
In my experience, the correct amount of sugar to add to achieve this is somewhere between 1/5 and 1/4 of a cup per gallon. Less and all the sugar will be consumed; more and your cider gets progressively more and more sweet. Keep in mind that adding apple juice concentrate at this point as many folks do will also add sugar.

With a little trial and error using small batches, you can pretty quickly work out appropriate back-sweetening for ciders, provided they haven't been built to a very extreme ABV.

I did the dishwasher pasteurization when I made my cider. It was easy. If you don't have a dishwasher that gets that hot you could use the stove top method. That way you don't have to back sweeten, but it is all up to you and what you want to do.

JonSnow said:

Also, I had planned on using either plastic brown PET bottles that someone gave me from a Mr.Beer kit or old soda bottles...if I put them in the dishwasher for 10 min, will the bottles survive?

Click to expand...

I wouldn't try and pasteurize in PET bottles. It might deform the crowns and not seal properly.

Pickled_Pepper said:

I wouldn't try and pasteurize in PET bottles. It might deform the crowns and not seal properly.

Click to expand...

Yeah, that's what I was kinda thinking. My other option is to use a bunch of bud bottles that someone dropped off (with the caps re-screwed on). I was thinking this might work with a little elbow grease.

"Cold Crashing" sounds like it might also be an option. All I have to do is make the bottles cold enough after carbonation has begun, right?

I wouldn't wait until the plastic bottles get rock hard before putting them in the fridge. I'd put them in right before they are perfectly carb'd and then drink them rather quickly. The plastic bottles will be more forgiving than glass, but personally I wouldn't automatically assume that cold crashing would stop the carbonation process. Most likely it will, but don't take it for granted.

Thanks Pickled Pepper,
I'm living in WI now and I think I might just put them outside my garage in the backyard. I put store-bought beer out there and it rarely freezes, but certainly stays cold. The plan is to drink this stuff up quickly. If I do end up with a blowout, the applejuice will probably just feed the garden (or at least ants...lol).

Maybe with this batch I'll put some into plastic and some into old bud bottles. As the months go on, I hope to increase my bottle collection.

At least once a year I put a bottle of something in the freezer just to "chill it". I usually start doing something else (and drinking something else ) and end up scrubbing the freezer the next day to get rid of broken glass and frozen beer.

Wisconsin. A friend has been trying to get me to go up to Madison for a few years now and I was hoping to make it to New Glarus for a tour. Have you ever been?

I want to go badly. I'm up north though, so that's pretty far for me. I have been to hinterland and titletown on a recent trip though.

If this tastes decent, it might become my cheap fix.

I made a really simple/cheap cider. All I did was take a gallon of cheap juice, a couple cinnamon sticks(got a pack for a dime with several in it) and a packet of wine yeast. I then bottled in soda bottles primed with table sugar and some Splenda. I think I wanted to see how cheap I could make something for, if it turns out bad I am probably out less than $5 for the entire batch. I have been chilling a bottle that is calling my name....... I don't think it will make it through the night. I am taking this thread as a sign it should be drank.

Just tried it, not bad. Not something I would drink all the time but probably something I will make again.

That sounds pretty interesting. What will you do differently (if anything) next time?

If this is decent, I think I'll keep trying this. If I get smart, I'll figure out how much yeast to add instead of just dumping the the whole amount.

I think I want to take two tracks at the same time. 1) will be the "good" beers that I really want to try to make. 2) will be cheap/easy/fast(?) stuff that I'd I can give away to friends and family.

Honestly the only thing different I would do is maybe add 1 more pack of Splenda per bottle to half the batch to see which I prefer . It was pretty good the way it was. It was very smooth, slightly sweet and the cinnamon seened to come in at the end. I may also try a clean Ale yeast like US-05 and make 3 gallons but I doubt that would have much of an effect as the cider is pretty clean and smooth now.

Also I love the name, I am watching season 1 and 2 in preperation of Season 3.

So I bottled today. Around 8:30am or so. My applejuice had sat for about 2.5 days. I bottled into a couple of soda bottles and some budlight bottles I had. I just screwed 'em back on. I checked the gravity 1.055 or so. I tried to find the paper that I had written the OG on, but couldn't find it. Then I waited.

About two hours later, I checked and the soda bottles were VERY hard. In the other thread it said to wait a day or so...I'm glad I didn't! I put the but light bottles in the dishwasher on sanitize for 15min and after it was done, I put them all outside in the snow.

I opened one of the soda bottles outside. I'm glad I was outside, it "erupted" as some in the other thread had mentioned. Later I opened a glass bottle and that erupted too. I'm guessing they all will...lol.

Lessons learned:
1) Take better notes. I bought a notebook to track this stuff and didn't use it for this "little experement." I won't make that mistake again.

2) Give it the full three days to ferment. There was still a bit of airlock activity when I began bottling.

3) keep at it. This was VERY easy to do compared with beer...I'll try to keep experimenting until I get it right. I'll probably try smaller batches though.

--------------
The Taste:
It is quite good. Still very sweet. Cloudy. I like it.

--------
Questions:

1) Did I get the "eruptions" because I had bottled too soon? Had I put them into the dishwasher sooner, this wouldn't have happened, right?

2) Is there any way to guess the alcohol content without the OG reading?

3) I was expecting this to be less sweet and more dry. Was this a function of too little time fermenting?

Edit: 4) are any of my glass bottles going to explode?


Fun times. Thanks to everyone for the help!

You bottled way to soon, you are at the beginning of active fermentation. I waited about 3 weeks to bottle mine and wouldn't even think about bottling anything in less than two weeks. Yes if you don't find a way to stop fermentation immediately you are going to have lots of bombs. I am really going to suggest spend a lot of time on the beginning brewrer forum.

Well, I am spending a lot of time there. I guess I should have posted this link again:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/5-day-sweet-country-cider-265986/

4 gallons fresh, unfiltered pressed apples (uv pasteurized)
1 1/4 lbs brown sugar
2 cinnamon sticks

1) Pour 3 1/2 gallons of juice into fermenter
2) Heat remaining half gallon with cinnamon sticks and brown sugar until sugar dissolves properly. Let cool to room temp.
3)Combine mixtures and mix vigorously to oxidize.
4)Hydrate and Pitch yeast.

-Let ferment for about 2-3 days, or until it hits 1.04.
-Bottle it. No need to rack of clear, this stuff is going to be cloudy no matter what you do to it, as it hasn't really fermented that far. it may help, however to give it a day in the fridge to get rid of excess yeast. I didn't do this though.

Let it sit in bottles for a day or so to carb, then bottle pasteurize. I did this by using my sanitize/rinse setting on my dishwasher of 10 minutes, but you can also do it on the stove (see stove-top pasteurization sticky).

Result:
A sweet, hard cider at about 5% abv that keeps a lot of original cider flavor, and is just a tad more tart and dry than the unfermented version. Definitely looks "rustic" due to its cloudiness. Cheers!

Click to expand...

This is the "template" I followed. Perhaps it's not a good one, but I thought it would be good to start with... for a quick/easy creation.

JonSnow said:

Well, I am spending a lot of time there. I guess I should have posted this link again:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/5-day-sweet-country-cider-265986/



This is the "template" I followed. Perhaps it's not a good one, but I thought it would be good to start with... for a quick/easy creation.

Click to expand...

Sorry, either I forgot reading it first time or I missed it. I am far from being an expert but there are a lot of variables in that process that would scare me to death especially in glass bottles.

Gravity was 1.055 when you bottled? You weren't anywhere near to final gravity, which on a cider with champagn yeast would be pretty close to 1.000.

When you bottled at 1.055, the solution was 5.5% denser than water, and it is SUGARS that make up that extra density. You bottled with all of that residual sugar still in the beer, and the yeast continued to eat that sugar and produce CO2. The CO2 had nowhere to go, so pressure just built up until the bottle couldn't hold it anymore.

That's what happened. Like the other guy stated, I ferment my ciders for AT LEAST 2 weeks. 2.5 days is not enough.

I have a question about back-sweetening.

I have a 14% apple wine fermented dry (0.991). How do you guys think it will taste back-sweetening it 550ml wine / 200ml apple juice (to fill a 750ml wine bottle), bringing it to 10%?

I know this is a 'to taste' type of thing but I'm just looking for opinions before I try it myself.

(Before you ask about stabilization, I've already racked to secondary onto 5 campden tablets and 3 tsp potassium sorbate. I'll be cold crashing for a week before bottling, and keeping the bottles in the fridge until drinking.)

Also, how would I get the apple juice into the bottle? Wouldn't just pouring it get oxygen in it? It'd be a pain to have to clean the racking cane after getting the juice in since I'm only back-sweetening a few bottles and leaving the rest dry and wouldn't want to risk getting sugar in those.

Or would oxidation not be a big deal if they're drank within a few months?

I backsweeten my ciders with 1/2 gallon sweet juice to 4.5 gallons of fermented juice in a corny keg, which turns out perfect to my tastes.

At that ratio, you'd add about 61ml of sweet juice to 550 ml. To avoid too much headspace in each bottle, I'd up that to 72ml to 650ml (same ratio) to equal 722 ml per bottle with 28ml of headspace. You could eyeball it and fill each bottle you intend to sweeten about 85% the volume of the bottle, then top it off with juice, leaving about an inch of headspace.

That small amount of juice isn't going to noticibly oxidize the wine longterm if you're careful.

A 1 to 9 ratio? Ok, I'll try that first, thanks.

Just to be sure, when you say "sweet juice" you mean normal apple juice right?