I made my cider with the apple juice from Sam's Club, using a glass gallon jug, standard rubber stopper and airlock. I didn't do anything in particular, just pitched the yeast and set it in a corner upstairs, since it's supposed to ferment at 70F. It started fermenting right away, although (as I implied in my previous post) it was kinda hard to tell. If I looked very closely, I could see very teeny bubbles rising. After a month or so things had been quiet in there for a while, and since I was bottling a batch of beer I just went ahead and bottled the cider. I used carb tabs to condition, and let it sit in the basement for about 3 months.
The results were pretty underwhelming. Nice carbonation, the cider was clear....but it tasted like a very, very dry white wine with a barely detectable apple flavor. Haven't made any more.
The only other thing I've done with apples was a 3-gallon batch of Graff (see Cider forum), which I liked better......but still not enough to make any more.