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Hard Cider

Started by 21incher, October 23, 2022, 05:51:26 PM

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21incher

Wondering if anyone else on here makes hard cider? We have been making it for years and everyone loves it. I have a batch in my cool root cellar that just turned 7 years old and it has aged to a flavor that is the most awesome cider ever. Just started my first carboy this year and shooting for 16% alcohol content. Most of mine in the past has been around 15% and hoping to top that.


It's going to get messy in a couple days so I always do the first ferment in a cooler to catch any drips. Can't believe how easy it is to make and how it has a slightly different flavor depending on the apple mixture.
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Jeff

I'd like to try some day, never have done that!
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rusticretreater

I make my own beer, cider.  And when its really cold, I go for apple jack whiskey.  Take your super hard cider outside, let it freeze pretty close to solid and pour off the watery stuff.  oh yeah.
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Crusarius

I would love to try that. always loved hard cider.

sawguy21

16%? :o That will curl your toes. @rusticretreater My boss would do that with a batch of wine he didn't like and use it to fortify the good stuff. He made a wicked pear wine, I forced myself to go easy if I had to drive home. ;D
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Don P

That is real apple jack.
I'm surprised you get to that alcohol content without sugar. I've made a few batches of apple wine, adding sugar to get to 12-15%. Hard cider here is usually too low an alcohol content to keep for too long Whicjh is why I've bumped it up to apple wine. I did dump the last of the sweet cider the other day, it had turned, which means if i had babysat it I could have had a quart of hard cider  :D. Hard cider that has vigorously hopped through a coil is, very nice.

21incher

Quote from: Don P on October 23, 2022, 09:30:49 PM
That is real apple jack.
I'm surprised you get to that alcohol content without sugar. I've made a few batches of apple wine, adding sugar to get to 12-15%. Hard cider here is usually too low an alcohol content to keep for too long Whicjh is why I've bumped it up to apple wine. I did dump the last of the sweet cider the other day, it had turned, which means if i had babysat it I could have had a quart of hard cider  :D. Hard cider that has vigorously hopped through a coil is, very nice.

First batches I made had no added  sugar but everyone wanted more alcohol  so I first kill the natural yeast then add sugar to adjust the brix and use champagne yeast that supposedly can live to 18%. It's raw tasting dry cider for the first  year then ages out to a wine after a couple years. Some batches I use brown sugar that gives it a molasses after taste. Not many people can drink  more then one 22 oz bottle. Late season  apples give it the best  flavor. 

When I was young  a friend and I tried  making a 55 gallon wine drum of hard cider and wound up with 55 gallons  of apple  cider vinegar 🤮

I still have to bottle my last years wine made with  Concord grapes and elderberries.  
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rusticretreater

There are several labs that make high quality yeasts for just about everything including high ABV yeasts.  You use them to start and then you should be cultivating your own from left over slurry.  White Labs has good stuff.

I use an erlenmeyer flask, boil some dried malt extract in water, let it cool and pitch the yeast in.  Put an air lock on it and sit in a cool dark place. Swirl it around once or twice a day for about 4-5 days to keep it in suspension.  The yeast multiplies like crazy.  Then pitch it into room temp apple mash and stir it up.  It will start bubbling in an hour or two.
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Ianab

Bear in mind that yeasts can mutate or become contaminated with wild strains over time. You can certainly re-use the yeast from a ferment, and it might be OK for years, or it might mutate into some new strain over time.  The labs keep their favourite strains freeze dried in long term storage so they can grow fresh pure batches of their good strains. 

I remember the saying, "You can put brewing yeast in bread, and it will work fine. But don't put bread yeast in your beer". It will ferment just fine, but it probably won't taste very good. 
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LeeB

Anyone know how to tell the final ACV after the ferment is finished other than estimated content using a hydrometer?
I'll be starting 10 gallons of apple wine tomorrow. Also have 15 gallons of blackberry that has just finished the primary ferment and will be going into carboys. I tried watermelon wine for the first time this year and have 15 gallons of it aging. Hmmm, Sounds like I might be a wino.  :D
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rusticretreater

Kinda complicated and still only a rough estimate.

Specific gravity is the weight ratio of your liquid in comparison to pure water at 68 degrees. And since this ratio is from 0 - 1.0, at 68 Fahrenheit or close to it, crude determination entails weighing out 100ml of your liquid using a graduated cylinder and on a calibrated lab scale.  You could use other volumes but they should always be based on 10.  10 ounces, 100 ounces, 100ml, 1000ml.

It will read out to a ratio around 0.80-1.00 (the alcoholic beverage weighs between 80 to 100 percent of pure water). Percent alcohol can then be calculated from there using Alcohol By Weight conversion to ABV formula.

So you weigh the pure water, you weigh your fermented spirit, calculate the ratio between the weight differences and then derive ABV using a conversion formula.  There are several versions online and the requisite arguments over which to use and its accuracy.

This does not take into account the amount of sediments floating in the liquid which are not alcoholic in nature. So straining or slight filtering might be used if you want to come closer to an accurate figure.

Or you can buy a hydrometer and save yourself the trouble.

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LeeB

I've got a hydrometer. Just wanted to know the actual finished ACV instead of the estimated ACV derived using the hydrometer.
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SwampDonkey

The original apple orchards up this way was for making hard cider. Wasn't for eating apples. There were lots of old apple trees here behind the house that were never an eat out of hand apple. There were real large ones on some trees that we called winter apples. They never dropped until a hard freeze. There was a crab apple for preserves, and really only 3 or 4 good eating apples. There was an acre of trees here. But every old farm house had an orchard. Some places the houses are long gone and the apples still stand.
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kantuckid

I have been making wine for many years and have 5 types in my cellar now. I've made it from fruit in the past but make wine ingredient kits now. Many kit makers leave out some water in a kit to jack up flavor & mouthfeel plus alcohol. I often use concentrated grape juice sold for wine makers to enhance flavor or alcohol/ Making whats called "simple syrup" is common for winemakers to jack up the alcohol, etc. That would work well with apple cider wine. 
Apple wine is a higher alcohol content that hard cider, with apple wine around 12% to 14%. Hard cider is sometimes thought of as cider made hard by fermenting w/o sugar added and gives a far lower % than the wine at around 4% to 7%. A wine at 4-7% will not store well w/o a wine preservative.
 Apple jack does as discussed ramp up that % a bunch and does store well-if you stay out of it.  :D
My apple cider book has much information and recipes on cider and hard cider. 
Around 30 years ago I rebuilt and antique, two basket, cider press. I've not used it in years and think I should offer it to a commercial orchard for fall harvest public to see. I froze my cider in milk jugs, never tried for wine or hard stuff though as I/we liked it fresh. My wife still uses cider in her Apple Butter to jack up the flavor.  
I worked for years with an Elliot Co, KY man (he taught carpentry) who ran a moonshine still and took apple juice through his still for apple brandy. I was always intrigued that it still had an apple smell and flavor left when it had become a clear liquid and high buzz factor as well. As I recall his apple brandywas double distilled.
 
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doc henderson

for beer and whiskey we use a refractometer.  It also measure specific gravity.  we used it in peds to look at urine concentration.  I do not know if it is more accurate or direct than the hydrometer.

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Chuck White

We use one of those when testing Maple Syrup!
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Don P

I've seen growers using them in orchards and vineyards.

SwampDonkey

I've never really acquired a taste for any alcoholic concoction. But I have had relatives that would never blink an eye. :D
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Al_Smith

Then there was Gomer Nickles at the time in his 80's .Gomer was once in the "great white fleet " in the US Navy .He'd prop his feet up on the pot belly stove in his sons shop while we worked on things drinking hard cider and get pie eyed and catch his rubber boots on fire .There was a box full that every so often went in the stove .My word did that rubber stink to high heavens .RIP Gomer gone but never forgotten .

sawguy21

That is funny :D I never acquired a liking for hard cider, too acidic for my taste, but sure do like the sweet stuff. It is hard to find in the stores now and this is apple country!
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Al_Smith

Cider which is just a stage until it turns into vinegar is supposed to be good for you .I really was never fond of either one except vinegar is good for cleaning windows .For that matter another thing I wasn't overly thrilled about doing . As a kid my mother seemed to like us to do it about this time of year,40 degrees with the wind blowing .Herself on the inside myself on the outside on a ladder .

doc henderson

Al that is part of what turned you into the man you are today.  God bless your mother!
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metalspinner

My son makes hard cider, Brandi, Perry, beer, etc. 
Nick would spy pear and apple trees around town and ask for the fruit for his experiments. 
But he's a chemist and loves the science of it all. 

I just picked up 9 bushels of apples on Sunday to make sweet cider. We do it each year and have friends over to make an event of it. We get enough to give away and put in the freezer for enjoyment all year. 

I do what the little voices in my wife's head tell me to do.

Al_Smith

Well Doc as they say a clean window is a happy window.I still do it BTW but with a long handled squeege .Windex these days not vinegar and in nicer weather .As for the cider my friend Georgie  Girl bought some store bought stuff ,not too bad BTW .

kantuckid

Quote from: doc henderson on October 24, 2022, 10:37:22 AM
for beer and whiskey we use a refractometer.  It also measure specific gravity.  we used it in peds to look at urine concentration.  I do not know if it is more accurate or direct than the hydrometer.


I use two, inexpensive, glass devices that are cheap and accurate enough for home wine makers. You must know alcohol and SG to make a fermented juice or it's gonna waste your materials and time not too mention the end products quality. One is typical weighted tube for SG, used for progressions thru wine making stages, the other smaller one is alcohol % and uses a tiny internal space. i've seen some on ebay that are easier to read than my current version.
My urine goes to a lab :D sometimes or our septic system, or the driveway. My 3 yr old grandson ask me last week- why I peed in the driveway. He lives in town me, I'm among the critters and its handy. My wife has mixed her own window cleaner for years and it's lots better than windex, not too mention cheaper. I wish I had some apples to pick up!
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