Cider or Apfelwein?

I have 2 apple trees planted in my yard and I get plenty of apples off them.. Both are macs so my questions are:

1. Is any apple ok to use??
2. Does this now make it hard cider and not Apfelwein?
3. Do you rack the skins along with the juice?
4. Does it take longer to clear?
5. Do you sanitize before pitching??

Should I just stick to apple juice or should I invest in a fruit press and go ape #$$% hog wild??

Is the only difference between apfelwein and cider the yeast used?? Maybe Ed can make the call so I can go back to drinking..

Its definitely ok to use any apples (unless they are rotten)
Its cider until you start adding sugar or lots of other ingredients.
In large batches ( 6 gal +) cider is just fermented juice, no skins or pulp.
It should actually clear quicker than apfelwein.
You can sanitise using camden tabs but its not necessary if you pitch soon after pressing.
Its pretty easy to make a press using 4x2s and a car jack.
Have a look at my recipe in the recipe section. You can easily get 10 gal per tree off a good tree.

Excellent thanks for your post...

the only difference between a cider and apfelwein is basically the yeast.


While cider can have many other things in it, if you just use juice and beer yeast that is a cider.

apfelwein uses montrachet wine yeast. Montrachet is what makes it taste hoochy and like cheap white wine. the apple flavor becomes subtle and noticeable after about one year. This is the most similar product to the real apfelwein in germany.

That being said, you can make a much better product by using a better yeast. Beer yeasts tend to be more gentle on the product and allow the original flavor to come through quite a bit more. Other wine yeasts will do a much better job as well. cleaner fermenting wine yeast will give more apple flavor and crisp up the profile. D-47 or some premier cuvee comes to mind.

Let me throw in one vote for:
Adding lots of other fermentable sugars and then following suite to get a higher alcohol (wine) is what kicks it from "hard cider" into Apflewein country. Least ways, what I've read. The montrachet is used because it will ferment out in higher alcohol, thus it's able to use the extra sugars to GET to the higher alcohol.

You can use montrachet on straight cider, and it will give you a dry, "champaign-like" product, if that's what you want, but it tends to be dusty and can be harse (at least mine was) until it mellows. The higher sugars also take additional time to ferment out, if you're looking for stratospheric alcohol levels.

I gave some AW to a couple guys at work and one wound up using it for cooking. The other stated that there was a noticable shift in gravity, with the ceiling replacing one of the walls in his house -- oh, and that his wife thought it was too dry.

Cider is pretty durn easy, and pretty fast, and usually ends up being a good consumable. I've over-tinkered with as many bad ciders as good ciders -- but I'm quite the noob, yet.

The trouble with adding lots of sugars is that 2 trees should produce a lot of juice and you would have to add a lot of sugar and get a lot of strong apfelwein. Ordinary hard cider is something you can drink plenty of, and is less likely to develop strange flavours (and smells) than apfelwein so would be a safer bet.