Anyone have some good beginner recipes?

I have never made cider before but I want to give it a shot. I have only had the woodchuck cider before. Does anyone have a recipe to make something like that or something they think is better. I want the cider to end up having a nice apple taste, not really watered down and tasteless. No other flavor additives. Also, do you end up adding lactose or something to make it sweet or do you end up making a dry cider? Thanks

The EASIEST recipe I have seen is for EdWort's apfelwein (do a search, there's a thread with about eight hundred thousand posts), but that's definately on the dry, wine-ey side. VERY tasty, though, and it could not be simpler to make; apple juice, corn sugar, and wine yeast. It's not like Woodchuck at all, but if you want to try something different, it's very good.

I see a recipe for Strongbow. I have never had that before. Can it be compared to woodchuck or something else for a reference?

I've heard that people have back sweetened the apfelwein recipe with apple concentrate. That might give you the simple initial recipe with the sweeter end result.

mike

The first time I made cider I used Mr. Beer concentrate and yeast and it's been my best batch yet. Primary for 2 weeks, bottled for 3 or so and it was quite tasty at that point.

I've tried both Strongbow and Woodchuck. Strongbow is quite dry with a slight bitter taste, whereas Woodchuck has a very pronounced apple taste. I wouldn't use Strongbow's recipe if you're looking for a sweeter 'applier' cider.

veggiess said:

The first time I made cider I used Mr. Beer concentrate and yeast and it's been my best batch yet. Primary for 2 weeks, bottled for 3 or so and it was quite tasty at that point.

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I did that too. The cider was excellent and I got many compliments.

One thing is MRB Cider is pricey. I think all of the flavor attributes is in the yeast. They ship cider extract with plain blank packets. I tried to inquire about the yeast type with no luck.

I said to them," You don't sell the yeast by itself. Why don't you tell me?". We emailed back and forth about 4 times. Then said yes they will sell it even though its not in the catalog or on the web. $4.50 each for a little pack of dry yeast. They said the type was proprietory. They alluded it might be a champagne.

Just for that I will never buy any more, no matter how good it tastes. It really annoyed me. I'll experiment before buying any more from them. If they said it was proprietory right away, I'd of said OK.

How many yeasts are proprietory? Its not like I wanted to make yeast. Hmmmm! I could culture it... nahhh, screw 'em That means I would have to buy the yeast.

They charge ~$16 for extract and yeast. Thats $8/gal without the sugar. Edwort's is ~$4 for a gal for everything.

I'm guessing MRB's yeast is Cote Des Blancs See the link below.

http://www.cfhb.org/mead/yeast_strains.htm#mont

After my Apfelwein is done I will do a batch with this yeast type.