Who knew how easy...

[paperairplane]

it is to make hard cider / apfelwein.... First try and so far, so good. I keep thinking relax, don't worry...

Locally, Kroger has cider and juice in 1 gal glass jugs. Cleaned everything up, took 2 cups of cider, heated and dissolved 1c white sugar and 1/2c brown sugar. Bloomed D47 yeast in 2oz water for 15 mins per instructions, added to the cider / sugar, dropped into the remaining cider and added airlock. Real busy fermentation the first week - basement is about 63-65*F.

I am a little over a week in and just moved to secondary. Quick taste test and it was still working, but nicely apple-y and certainly gaining in ABV. I am going to give this another 4-6 weeks and then probably just drink it. Not really looking to bottle or keg at this stage.

Next step is probably going to be to get a few 6 gal carboys and get serious.

 

[Doc Robinson]

Epic first post! Congrats!

 

[paperairplane]

Funny, my first 1 gal jug now has a partner... and a 3rd I will probably pitch tomorrow. I think with some planning, I should be able to have a 3-4 jug rotation and have one about ready just about all the time, with no bottling necessary. Jug #1 is doing real well, if I had to guess it is already over 5% and still making 1 bubble / second. Thanksgiving should be fun.

 

[Lunarpancake]

haha grats. This is how its done....just be sure to save a paycheck for when you go to the local brew store because youll go nuts if you anything like i am.

 

[david_42]

Hard cider is easy, but trying to duplicate a commercial cider is just about impossible, since most of them don't identify the apple type. On the other hand, I haven't had a home-made cider that wasn't at least good and most are excellent.

 

[PiecefulToker]

I bought a gallon of pasteurized cider (Murray's I think it's called), added about 1/4 cup of honey, and half a packet of Nottingham without rehydrating. After 17 days I racked it off into another jug and just drank it from the fridge like that.

I poured a gallon of Whole Foods pasteurized cider on top of the yeast cake in that jug. It got down to 1.015 in 4 days, so I racked it and put it in the fridge.

I am going to use fresh yeast on the next batch, but I think it works great to use 1 gallon jugs and pitch on top of the previous yeast cake, maybe use fresh yeast every other time. If you used washing procedures, I bet you could reuse the same yeast many times without a problem. If you catch it before it goes dry, it tastes great and doesn't even need to be carbed.

I plan to keep this on rotation in my fridge as well. ~5 days from fresh cider to hard cider is pretty awesome. :rockin:

 

[RugenBrau]

What was the OG? 1.015 in 5 days seems awfully fast.

 

[PiecefulToker]

Didn't even measure it. Just plain juice with no extra fermentables, so I figure probably lower in the 1.040-1.050 range.

 

[jcobbs]

Yep, it's about that easy. I was bottling yesterday and I had a gallon of AJ just sitting there. Unscrewed the top, pitched a pack of Premiere Cuvee, stuck on an airlock, and sat it back in my fermenting cabinet. Didn't even slow down my bottling. Today it's bubbling away. In a few weeks I'll be drinking it. Hard to get much simpler than that...