Ingredients:
10 lbs Tom Putts (sharp apples)
5 lbs crabapples (bitter sweet apples)
5 lbs James Grieve (sweet apples)
Extract juice. Put aside 4 fl oz to which you must add champagne yeast and 1 tsp of sugar. Put this in a warm place for 2 days. To the main body of the juice add 1 crushed campden tablet. Leave covered for 48 hours. Check the pH and OG. Adjust as necessary. Add pectolase if wanted. Add yeast starter. Rack after 2 weeks. Test the gravity. Ferment until the gravity reached 1005. Bottle with 1/2 tsp. sugar per pint. Leave to mature. Although this recipe is for sparkling cider the degree of carbonation is low. The carbonation level is about the maximum which you will come across in a true English cider but is almost flat when compared to a Normandy cider. If you want it carbonated to French levels then the cider must be bottled in Champagne bottles and treated exactly as you would a Champagne style wine. Consult a good wine making guide for details on how to do this.
Dry Still Cider
Ingredients:
10 lbs Tom Putts (sharp apples)
5 lbs crabapples (bitter sweet apples)
5 lb Charles Ross (sweet apples)
Extract the juice from the apples. Put aside 4 fl oz of juice and add to this dried champagne yeast and 1 tsp of sugar. Put in a warm place for 2 days. Add 1 crushed campden tablet to the main body of the juice and leave covered for 48 hours. Check the pH and the OG and adjust as necessary. Add pectolase if required. Add the yeast starter. Rack after 2 weeks. When the gravity reaches 1005, rack and add 1 crushed campden tablet. Leave 2 weeks. Bottle and leave to mature for 4-5 months.
Dry Cider
Ingredients:
50 lbs Tom Putts (sharp apples)
50 lbs mixed sweet apples
Extract the juice from the apples. Reserve 4 fl oz for starter to which you add champagne yeast and 1 tsp sugar. Place in a warm place for 48 hours. Add 1 campden tablet per gallon of juice and leave covered for 48 hours. Check pH and OG (which should be 1050). Ferment until the gravity reaches 1005 and add campden tablets. Leave 2 weeks. Bottle and mature.
Sweet Cider
Ingredients:
10 lbs Cox's Orange Pippins (sweet apples)
5 lbs Tom Putts (acid apples)
5 lbs bitter sweet apples
Extract the juice reserving 4 fl oz for a starter. Add campden tablets to the main body of the juice and leave 24 hours. Meanwhile make the yeast starter by adding 1 tsp sugar and dried Hock yeast to the reserved juice. Leave in a warm place for 24 hours and then add to the body of the juice. Check the pH and OG (which should be 1060). Be patient, fermentation can take 2-3 days to start. Allow gravity to drop to 1020 and add 2 crushed campden tablets. Leave 2 weeks. Bottle and mature.
Mulled Cider
Ingredients:
Whole cloves
Whole allspice
Cinnamon bark
Coarsely grated nutmeg
An apple
1 litre Cider
Mix the spices in roughly equal amounts and weigh out 8 g of the mixture. Place into a small muslim bag and close off with string. Now take the apple, wash it well but do not peel. Cut into medium-thick slices. Place the apple, spice sack and cider into a pan and gently heat. Do not bring to the boil otherwise the alcohol will boil off. Maintain the heat so that you can just bear to put your finger into the cider. Keep at this temperature for 15 minutes. Remove the muslim sack and serve the mulled cider. In some variants of the recipe the apple remains whole and is studded with cloves pressed into the skin of the apple. The amounts of the various spices can be varied according to taste.
Cranberry Hard Cider
Ingredients:
4 Gallons sweet cider (no preservatives)
2 cups cane sugar
2 cups light brown sugar
2 pints cranberries
Champagne yeast
1/2 cup cane sugar at bottling
The trick here is finding sweet cider that contains no preservatives. The basic recipe is 1/2 - 1 cup cane sugar or brown sugar per gallon of sweet cider. Other additions are at your discretion. As for yeast, champagne yields a drier cider than the liquid cider yeast. The champagne yeast is highly tolerant of an alcohol environment and ferments more sugar leaving less residual sugars. It's strongly suggested to use cider yeast, but if you do use champagne yeast, prime with a slightly less amount of sugar to avoid exploding bottles.
Add all ingredients except cranberries to fermenter. Boil the sugars in about a half gallon of the sweet cider first. Leave in primary for about 2 weeks. Transfer to secondary. Boil some water and add the cranberries to the pot. Remove from heat and seep about 15 minutes. Cool as rapidly as possible and add to fermenter. Find a cool place for secondary fermentation and forget about it for about 2 months, if you can wait. The finished product will be cloudy but will tastes great. You can add finings to clear it.
One warning:- Make sure the fermentation is complete before bottling. You can use less sugar at bottling and wait longer for carbonation, to be on the safe side. The yeast has a high tolerance for alcohol and will ferment most of the sugars. I had to chill the bottles to about freezing to avoid gushing when opening.
New England Hard Cider
Ingredients:
3 Gallons sweet cider (no preservatives)
1 cups cane sugar
1 cups light brown sugar
3/4 cups corn sugar
2 tbs. molasses
1 cup raisins
Wyeast Cider/Mead yeast
1/3 cup cane sugar at bottling
Boil sugars and molasses and add to cider. Add yeast. After active fermentation subsides add the raisins. After about 2 weeks transfer to secondary. Leave for a couple months in cool area. The longer the wait, the clearer the cider. This is much clearer than the cranberry cider above. It takes almost a full month to prime in the bottles. This yeast is not quite as active as the champagne yeast.
Apple Cider & Apple Jack
Ingredients:
1 gallon apple juice (or 16 pounds apples)
1 cup granulated sugar
1/2 teaspoon yeast energizer
1 1/2 teaspoon acid blend
1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
1 campden tablet
1 package champagne yeast (for 1 to 5 gallons)
Apple Cider - Place chopped fruit or juice in primary fermentor. Add balance of ingredients. Stir to dissolve sugar. Stir daily for 5 to 6 days or until frothing ceases. Strain out fruit and squeeze as much juice out of it as you can. Siphon into secondary fermentor and attach airlock. Rack in three weeks, and again every 2 months until the cider is clear. Gently stir in 1/4 cup sugar per gallon. Bottle in champagne bottles or clean pop bottles. Age three months.
Apple Jack - Early American settlers made this by setting their apple cider outside in the winter and allowing it to become slushy. They would then skim the frozen water off of the surface, leaving a "hardened" cider behind. Commercially, it is now distilled. This is illegal for the home brewer, but the freezing method is effective. First, make Apple Cider (recipe above). Skip the final step, and allow it to age the three months in the secondary fermentor. Second, siphon it back into the primary fermentor. If you have a deep freeze, put the primary fermentor in it overnight. If not, use ice cream buckets and the fridge freezer. Remember to leave room for the water to expand when it freezes. The alcohol will not freeze, so it is forced into the center of the container when the cider is frozen. The brewer then has the option of either skimming the ice off of the surface, or siphoning the alcohol out of the center. The siphoning method will result in a higher alcohol content than the skimming method.