Why apple juice and not cider?

[OpenSights]

I’m curious why so many cider recipes here call for apple juice and not apple cider. At least in my area we have uv pasteurized cider with no preservatives available year round. Is there an advantage to juice?

 

[Maylar]

It's available year round everywhere. And not everyone lives in apple land.

 

[bmd2k1]

Use both...but Apple cider is not available year round here....100% AJ is. Bonus get a full days supply of VitC in every pint of my cider [emoji111]

 

[SpottedDogBrewing]

I think using juice makes the flavor close to Reds Apple Ale! While cider is more of a wine taste

 

[OpenSights]

Interesting. I’ll have to try using juice sometime. Makes sense how it would come out a bit different.

I made a raw cider that I bottled a week ago, drank one last night, low carbonation and made me think it tasted more like wine than a cider.

Thanks for the info!

 

[madscientist451]

There's lots of confusion about what to call various apple products.
Apple juice can be the imported re-constituted stuff from the big box store, more natural products like Simply Apple or the fresh product sold at your local orchard called cider. Cider in the US could be fermented or non-fermented, while in the UK the term cider is reserved for the alcoholic drink.
For brewing recipes I believe apple juice is a better term to use and then its up to the individual what actually goes into the brew.
A few years back I did a bunch of trials using different blends of apples and different yeasts along with some commercial juices and invited friends for taste tests of the samples. I was surprised to find that Simply Apple from the grocery store, scored near the top and although somewhat pricey, save a lot of time and effort compared to searching for heirloom apples, grinding, pressing and all the clean up.
Cheap juice from Walmart scored at the bottom, and local cider from an orchard was somewhere in the middle.

 

[OpenSights]

Hmmm.... I do need to hit the grocery store today.

Thanks!

 

[dmtaylor]

Cider is hard. Juice is not. Semantics.

 

[MarkKF]

I think using juice makes the flavor close to Reds Apple Ale! While cider is more of a wine taste

The wine taste comes from more sugar. Reds is not cider. I don’t even think the apple is fermented. It’s basically a light beer sweetened with apple juice.

I think IMO that a lot of recipes call for juice because FAJC + water, commercial apple juice like Motts and brown fresh pressed unfiltered is all apple juice. Cider is the finished product AKA Hard Cider.

 

[OpenSights]

FAJC? Basically pop vs. soda? IMHO there’s a huge difference between what I call apple juice and cider... beside the UK terminology.

 

[bmd2k1]

FAJC = frozen apple juice concentrate

 

[Drewed]

It’s a verbiage thing. By me apple juice is a clear (no solids) apple product that may or may not be from concentate or may or may not contain other juices (grape) mixed in with the apple. It also may or may not have sweeteners added.
Cider is apple juice that has not been filtered. All of the rest above may apply. “Fresh pressed” better be straight from the orchard and have nothing else added. It may or may have been frozen depending on the time of the year.
Hard Cider is the fermented stuff.

 

[Blackbear78]

Apple cider vs Apple Juice it comes down to the filtration. Apple juice tends to be clear and see through because it is filtered. The official description from the Massachusetts Department of Agriculture says cider is "raw apple juice that has not undergone a filtration process to remove coarse particles of pulp or sediment." On the other hand, apple juice undergoes filtration to remove pulp and is then pasteurized to extend the shelf life.

So in the end it is the same thing, just one is more rustic you could say. I like using the cider.

Now HARD cider is the stuff we are aiming to make using these other two.