store-bought vs crushed

[Patrick_G]

hi guys, I’m fairly new in the homebrew world, started during the COVID-19 lockdown and I’m liking it. I’ve gotten to like ciders so far and I have a question for the experienced members. Does cider made from store-bought apple juice different from the one made from crushed apples?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Patrick_G and welcome. I would say that the answer is "it depends". Store bought is created to be drunk as a soft sweet drink and so the cocktail of apples tends to be low in acids and very low in tannins. If you were to buy a variety of apples at your local farmers market or supermarket those apples will also tend to be low in acidity and in tannins. Orchards that press apples for people who are interested in making hard cider are likely to include apples that are higher in acidity and that have much more tannins than table apples. Indeed, cider apples are often inedible because they are so tart and so astringent. So, bottom line: cider made from cider apples is different than cider made from eating apples but most Americans are not familiar with cider apples. But it is not who does the pressing that is important it is what is pressed that makes all the difference.

 

[Patrick_G]

Hi Patrick_G and welcome. I would say that the answer is "it depends". Store bought is created to be drunk as a soft sweet drink and so the cocktail of apples tends to be low in acids and very low in tannins. If you were to buy a variety of apples at your local farmers market or supermarket those apples will also tend to be low in acidity and in tannins. Orchards that press apples for people who are interested in making hard cider are likely to include apples that are higher in acidity and that have much more tannins than table apples. Indeed, cider apples are often inedible because they are so tart and so astringent. So, bottom line: cider made from cider apples is different than cider made from eating apples but most Americans are not familiar with cider apples. But it is not who does the pressing that is important it is what is pressed that makes all the difference.

Hi Bernardsmith, thank you very much for your insightful reply. Since im a beginner, ive made my first batch with store-bought juice but my next will definitely be from crashed apples.

 

[Chalkyt]

Welcome to the fun! Following on from Bernardsmiths excellent advice, here are some things that I have tried in order to "improve" store bought juice. I have also been doing some Covid experiments.

I usually press my own apples (I am on a couple of acres with eight apple trees which are mostly eating types but there are a couple of "mystery pippins" and a crab apple... together they make quite a good cider). However with the drought and bushfires here in our region of Oz this year the trees didn't produce any usable fruit, so I had to try store bought juice.

Firstly I tried "Graham's English Cider" using preservative free store bought juice. There is a post for this somewhere on the Forum and it uses black tea and limes as additives (roughly, the recipe is four black teabags and three key limes or one ordinary lime to five gallons of juice). It was a bit rough to start and took about six months to mature into a pleasant, easy to drink quaffer. I have found that store bought "drinking" juice by itself loses flavour as the yeast consumes the sugars. Although I understand that fans of "turbo" cider don't find this to be an issue.

The second effort involved blending two different single variety juices (Granny Smith and Pink Lady). The tartness of the Granny Smith blended well with the "off sweet" Pink Lady and using SO4 yeast, produced quite a good cider.

I also "dry hopped" some of these. This does wonders for any "ordinary" cider and involves putting 3g/litre (about half an ounce or less per gallon) of dried hops in a tea bag and steeping it in your secondary ferment. A word of caution with doing this... hops float, so you have to weigh the teabag with marbles or something similar.

I dry hop at the very end of secondary fermentation, just before bottling and only for a few days. The trick here is to taste, taste, taste, because the cider takes on the hop flavour quite quickly.

Enjoy the ride!

 

[madscientist451]

The best way to go is use a blend of as many different apple varieties as you can find. Its very unlikely you are going to get real cider apples if you are in the US, but you can get by with using a mix of different varieties. Jonagold and Jonathan apples make a good base (50%). Red delicious is somewhat bland, but you can use it if its all you have. Keep any really tart apples like Granny Smith to no more than 10%.
Apples that are good for eating raw are not always the best for making hard cider. Seek out small orchards in your area and see what they have and ask what they think makes the best cider.

 

[Patrick_G]

Welcome to the fun! Following on from Bernardsmiths excellent advice, here are some things that I have tried in order to "improve" store bought juice. I have also been doing some Covid experiments.

I usually press my own apples (I am on a couple of acres with eight apple trees which are mostly eating types but there are a couple of "mystery pippins" and a crab apple... together they make quite a good cider). However with the drought and bushfires here in our region of Oz this year the trees didn't produce any usable fruit, so I had to try store bought juice.

Firstly I tried "Graham's English Cider" using preservative free store bought juice. There is a post for this somewhere on the Forum and it uses black tea and limes as additives (roughly, the recipe is four black teabags and three key limes or one ordinary lime to five gallons of juice). It was a bit rough to start and took about six months to mature into a pleasant, easy to drink quaffer. I have found that store bought "drinking" juice by itself loses flavour as the yeast consumes the sugars. Although I understand that fans of "turbo" cider don't find this to be an issue.

The second effort involved blending two different single variety juices (Granny Smith and Pink Lady). The tartness of the Granny Smith blended well with the "off sweet" Pink Lady and using SO4 yeast, produced quite a good cider.

I also "dry hopped" some of these. This does wonders for any "ordinary" cider and involves putting 3g/litre (about half an ounce or less per gallon) of dried hops in a tea bag and steeping it in your secondary ferment. A word of caution with doing this... hops float, so you have to weigh the teabag with marbles or something similar.

I dry hop at the very end of secondary fermentation, just before bottling and only for a few days. The trick here is to taste, taste, taste, because the cider takes on the hop flavour quite quickly.

Enjoy the ride!

Hey Chalkyt, thanks for the good advice, since I live in a city (Johannesburg, South Africa) with no Apple farms around, I’ll have to try your ticks on the store-bought Apple juice. But I’ll look around I might find fellow brewers who might know how to access fresh pressed apple juice.
Thanks again

 

[madscientist451]

South Africa grows a large amount of apples and exports them as well.
If you can manage a road trip when its apple picking season, you may be able to find something for above average cider:
https://www.loxtonia.co.za/living-in-an-apple-world/But many people get good results with store bought juice and frozen apple concentrate.

 

[Craiginthecorn]

Marshall Schott of Brülosophy has done a lot of testing and he's gotten great results from commercial apple juice from Costco. Perhaps if you're looking for an award-winner, you'd want to see out a freshly-pressed craft cider, but you can make great cider from even pasteurized, bottled juice.

 

[Patrick_G]

South Africa grows a large amount of apples and exports them as well.
If you can manage a road trip when its apple picking season, you may be able to find something for above average cider:
https://www.loxtonia.co.za/living-in-an-apple-world/But many people get good results with store bought juice and frozen apple concentrate.

Thank you Madscientist451

 

[Patrick_G]

Marshall Schott of Brülosophy has done a lot of testing and he's gotten great results from commercial apple juice from Costco. Perhaps if you're looking for an award-winner, you'd want to see out a freshly-pressed craft cider, but you can make great cider from even pasteurized, bottled juice.

Thank you Craiginthecorn.

 

[Chalkyt]

Yep, getting hold of the juice you want can be a bit hard. My "Graham's English Cider" was based on a couple of "drinking" juices that I guess are a blend of whatever they get. These were "Nudie" and "Tassie" brands which were the only ones that I could find in the supermarkets that claimed to be preservative free. Nevertheless, the results were O.K. and certainly better than no cider at all!

I later found the Pink Lady and Granny Smith single variety juices at an orchard in Victoria called Summer Snow (their crop was trashed one year by a freak blizzard in Summer... hence the strange name for their juice). Their juices only seem to be sold at specialty food markets. When I contacted Summer Snow they were very helpful as they also do contract pressing and blends for commercial cider makers. You might find something similar in S.A.

You will be in the same situation as us in Oz with an apple season from March to May so you have a six months wait to see if any fresh juice is around. Also, I guess that Joburg is a bit too far from the apple growing regions of Free State and Western Cape for a quick day trip.

So, I guess the short answer is to get whatever juice you can and experiment, experiment, experiment. Something like 20% other fruit (cherries for example) in the cider can produce some interesting flavours. Have a look at a post by GeneDaniels1963 (April 29 2019) about adding pineapple, it sounds really good.