Apple cider: 8 recipes at home
Earlier, Zbovtay has already told you how to make pear и cherry cider at home.
And now it's time for the classics - apple cider.
Tips before you start
For cider, take apples of summer, autumn and winter varieties, mostly sweet and sour, with a low sugar content.
If using high-sugar apples, the juice should be diluted a little with water.
Apples are always carefully sorted and washed, cut out places of damage and spoilage, and during grinding, remove the stalk and the remains of sepals.
The French drink cider unfiltered, cloudy and without gas.
Simple apple cider
Ingredients
Ripe apples - 10 kg
Sugar - 1.5 kg
Method of preparation
Wipe unwashed apples (it is better to take them from a summer cottage) with a dry towel, cut off the rotten parts, remove the tails and grind them together with the skin and seeds using a blender or meat grinder.
Transfer the applesauce to a sterile fermentation container, the mass should fill the container by no more than 3/4 of the volume.
Then add granulated sugar (at the rate of 150 g per 1 kg of apples) and mix well.
Cover the neck with gauze and leave for 3-4 days in a dark room at room temperature. Stir the contents of the container daily.
As soon as the first signs of fermentation appear (hissing, abundant foam and sour odor), strain the wort through cheesecloth and squeeze the cake well.
Pour the resulting liquid into a clean container and install a water seal.
Transfer the container to a dark room with a temperature of 18-27 degrees for 1.5-2 months. After the fermentation is complete, the drink will brighten and a sediment will appear at the bottom.
Then carefully pour the drink through a straw and pass it through a cheesecloth filter.
Pour the apple cider into glass bottles and leave it in a dark, cool room for 3-4 months to mature.
Apple cider without sugar
This recipe is very popular with the French and the British. It does not contain any other ingredients except natural freshly squeezed apple juice.
So you can use any amount of juice in the process of making homemade cider without any proportions and restrictions.
Given that no auxiliary ingredients are used to help start the fermentation process, you need to use unwashed sweet apples without any chemicals. And store fruits are definitely not suitable for this recipe, in principle, as well as for others.
And the main pattern is that the sweeter the apples, the stronger the finished product will be.
The method of preparation
Pour any amount of freshly squeezed apple juice into a sterile container and leave it for a day in a dark room at room temperature.
Then we install a water seal or a medical glove with a small hole in the finger on the neck.
Transfer the container to a warm place with a temperature of 18-27 degrees for about 1-1.5 months.
After this time, drain the cider from the sediment with a straw and pour it into a clean container.
Now leave the drink for 4 months in a cool room (cellar is best) to stabilize the taste.
Before tasting, gently drain the apple cider from the sediment again and then bottle it.
This drink is stored for 6-9 months in the refrigerator or cellar.
If you want the cider to become slightly carbonated, at the stage of bottling it, pour literally 10 g of granulated sugar on the bottom of the container and then pour the cider.
Then the drink will start to ferment again and carbon dioxide will be formed.
Important! In this case, the bottle should be filled with still cider only to 75% of the total volume.
Cider with the addition of wine yeast
For the preparation, you will need undiluted apple juice and a 3% dilution of wine yeast.
The method of preparation
To prepare 100 g of wine yeast starter, chop a glass of unwashed berries (raspberries, strawberries, rose hips), pour 1/2 cup of boiled warm water and add 1-1.5 tbsp. sugar.
Close the lid and put in a dark place for 3 days at a temperature of +20 degrees. Stir daily.
Add a dilution of yeast to apple juice (sterile, boiled) poured into a well-sterilized container, close with a cork with a water seal and leave for 3-4 days for fermentation.
If desired, the cider can be clarified with milk. To do this, you need to take skim milk (obrat): put the milk in the refrigerator for a day, remove the cream, and use the remaining milk to process the wine. Take 1 hour for 1 liter of wine. л. of milk. Mix the wine and milk thoroughly. After that, keep the mixture for several days at a temperature not lower than +15 °C. During this time, the wine will lighten, after 3-5 days it can be filtered.
Cider does not stand for a long time, so you need to drink it quickly.
You can add a little cognac to the cider, which will give the wine strength and unusual flavor.
Cider from sour apples
Ingredients
Sour apple juice - 4.5 liters of juice
Sugar - 5 cups
Yeast - 25 g
The method of preparation
Cut the apples, put them in a saucepan, add water to cover the apples.
Insist 2 weeks, stirring occasionally.
After 2 weeks, carefully strain and heat the liquid. Add sugar and yeast.
Close and put in a warm place for fermentation.
After the start of fermentation, pour into the barrel, after the end of fermentation, seal the barrel.
After 6 months, bottle it.
Alternative recipe for apple cider
Ingredients
Apples - 5 kg of apples
Water - 6 liters
Honey or sugar - 1.5 kg
The method of preparation
Cut sour forest or garden apples into 4 pieces. Put in a clean linen or canvas bag, tie it up and place it in a clean enamel bowl with a lid or a wooden barrel with a false bottom.
Cover the top with a wooden, preferably mesh, stake, press down with a load so that the apples do not rise, and pour syrup from boiled water and honey or sugar.
Cover the dishes with a cloth and leave them to ferment in the cellar.
After 4-5 weeks, after making sure that the cider is fermented, carefully pour into clean dishes and leave in the cellar.
Pour the pulp with the same syrup in the volume of the drained cider and after 4-5 weeks pour the fermented cider into clean dishes again, and pour the pulp for the third time.
Mix the cider of all the plums and leave it in a cold place until it is well fermented (usually 6-9 months).
Pour the fermented, settled transparent apple cider into bottles, cork and keep for another 3-4 weeks in the cellar.
Cider made from wild apples
Sort through the forest apples harvested in August, remove spoiled and damaged fruits and let them dry well.
Put some dried apples on the bottom of the prepared tub with a hole for a sleeve with a diameter of 10-14 cm and fill it with fresh apples to 3/4 of the volume.
Pour cold boiled water over the apples, cork the barrel and put it in the cellar for 4-5 weeks for fermentation.
After draining the finished cider, pour the pulp again with boiled water and repeat this throughout the winter, spring and even summer until the apples are wet.
Store the drained apple cider in the cellar. This cider is stable, but it can be very sour, so before drinking it, you can add sugar or juice and a little baking soda, you get a delicious fizzy drink.
Cider made from dried apples
Cider is best obtained from fruits peeled before drying (without peel and seed), cut into slices and dried in the sun.
The method of preparation
Pour dried fruits into a prepared barrel or glass bottle and pour cold boiled water (per 1 kg 10 liters).
Cover with a cloth and, without corking, put in a cool room for 2-4 days, and then transfer to the cellar, where it is kept until the drink sparkles.
At the beginning of fermentation, cork the barrel with cider and leave it in the cellar for 3-4 weeks. The quality of such cider will increase if you pour it into bottles at the beginning of fermentation, putting a raisin in each.
Put tightly sealed bottles in the basement or cellar in the sand in a lying down position and store until use.
Apple cider recipe according to Brockhaus and Efron
To obtain sweet cider intended for immediate consumption, you should take 1 part of tart apples and 2 parts of sweet apples; if the cider is supposed to be stored for a long time, then, on the contrary, 2 parts of tart apples and 1 part of sweet apples; it is necessary to mix the following varieties of apples that ripen at the same time...
Method of preparation
Ripe and soft apples and pears should be pressed immediately after harvesting and chopping.
After rapid fermentation, the wine is drained from the yeast (that is, from the thick settled at the bottom of the vat) into clean barrels in which there is a quiet fermentation; if it does not begin, then add pure beet sugar 800-1200 g per 8 buckets to the young cider.
Fruits must be washed and cleaned before crushing; utensils (vats, barrels, tubs, barrels, mugs, etc.).) must also be of impeccable purity. Some people dilute the wort of apples and pears with water in the amount of 5-8% in the first case and 10-15% in the second.
Water is poured over the pressed pulp, which is pressed again after 10-12 hours, and the resulting liquid is mixed with the originally separated pure wort. If the wort is diluted with water, then for every 8 buckets of the latter, you should take 9-11 kg of sugar, which is added to the wort before or during fermentation.
Ready-made cider, before bottling, if it is cloudy, is purified either with fresh wine yeast in the amount of 5-10% or with skimmed milk (4/5 mugs for 8 buckets).
It is also made from apples: tinctures and liqueurs, liquor, wine, moonshine, brew.
Update: 03.07.2018
Category: Beer, Cider, Ale