Thread: Cider time once again

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Well with Fall in full swing here, I once again cleaned up the old apple press. Went searching for cheap apples on Craigslist, and found a guy with 7 acres of Rome Beauties, a variety from Ohio that was used for cooking and cider making. I finally found a excellent book on hard cider, that goes into what blends of what varieties, to get a good balanced hard cider. Turns out Rome Beauties are great for the bulk of the juice.
The guy with the orchard was super nice, he said nobody wanted his apples any more, but at one time the orchard was pulling in around 180,00.00 dollars a year!
He let me pick as many apples as I wanted for 10 bucks, invited me back to get more for free. Even said to come back next year. I ended up getting around 270 lbs of apples from him, and spent two full days between harvesting and processing into juice, and came up with about 12 gallons of juice.

Steve, if you wake up tomorrow and have some Englishman sleeping on your doorstep, don't be alarmed.............it's just Langy.

Don

Here are some photos. I ended up using about 60 lbs of mixed apples from various grafted trees in my yard, as well as the romes. The bottom picture has 6 gallons of new cider actively fermenting in the foreground and 5 gallons that have been going slowly from about August. I'm experimenting with different types of yeast and apple varieties. I ended up freezing about 5 gallons of juice to do another batch, once I can find some bittering apples to add. The bitter varieties are probably the hardest to find around here. I mostly need something like crab apples(in small volumes) to add to the overall blend for the right acid level/ tart taste flavor. Also just finished bottling 5 gallons of home brew ( a lightly hopped medium ale with about 2 cups honey added to up the ETOH as well as 6.5 pounds austrailian light malt)

Don I was thinking about him, while brewing up this batch. I might even name this batch Dicken's!

Glad to see that you have a guard dog helping out!

Hey he tried to drink the juice as it was pouring out of the trough! He's a real nut, but a great companion!

He looks exactly like our late companion "Lucy" - - - - I really enjoyed this thread - - - - cider making is not something that I have ever been around altho I have purchased some at various tourist stops when traveling.

Yeah I wish this stuff once fermented was as good as the stuff on tap, I'm experimenting with cold filtration, and sweetening the finished product, as well as kegging and artificially carbonating it. I've also bought some pure apple extract to add back in the apple cider flavor that leaches out during fermentation, and lastly using different yeast strains(i.e. beer yeast, wine yeast and champaign yeast to see what the different strains do to the end product. Its fun, but mistakes are costly in the time and effort department.

I heard Langy boarded a plane this morning to come visit you Steve. He loves his Cider!

I've never had any hard cider,but I love apple cider and although I very rarely drink this thread has me wanting to hunt down some hard cider,maybe a flight out to Petaluma is in order.
just don't do like my Father in law,He got on a wine making kick and produced gallons of wines, Grape,edelberry,watermellon,strawberry etc. Except he didn't think they had enough kick so he started adding everclear to it. I want to tell ya a small glass of that stuff would make your fanny find a seat. Hmmmmm, wonder who around here sells hard cider ?

You should be able to find some just about any place that sells beer. Cider prior to prohibition was a household staple. After prohibition, orchards were cut down, due to the "devil nature" of ETOH. After that beer took over to replace it. Prior to prohibition, a glas of cider, meant a glass of fermented hard cider. The term Hard cider is a U.S. term. In England I believe if you ask for a Cider you'll automatically get a hard cider. The best stuff around here is on tap at the bar, but our local Trader Joe's sells ACE brand Hard Cider and Hard Pear Cider (aka Perry). The pear stuff is really good. Just have to watch it, as it slides down like water, but the alcohol will catch up to you.

We just finished with our last pressing and made over 400 gallons this year- We get 99% of our apples from friends that have old trees in their yard and just want the apples gone before the bears start breaking the trees.

My friend and I have been making cider for 30 years so far with usually 500 gallons per year our best year we did 1600.
I built the press from plans in Mother Earth News mag. only we used stainless steel for most of the parts.

We like to press the juice and leave it in food quality plastic buckets with a tight fitting lid for many weeks on the cool back porch. The sweetness works out and a smooth refreshing drink is made. Not sure if it is what you would call hard cider but it sure is tasty.
cheers

Kewl.theres a Trader Joes couple miles from here. Anybody tried Original Sin or Strongbow as those seem to be the favorite bottled stuff.

Tow'd you must have a big hopper/crusher, or a lot of time on your hands if your using a old hand cranker like mine! That's a lot of juice! About home many pounds do you start with?
HWORRELL - haven't heard of those, it seems there are a ton of brands popping up everywhere, faster than microbrew pubs! And a lot of old brands that are only sold locally or regionally. My general experience is if it is super cheap, it's not as good as as a medium priced brew, but more expensive is not always more better in the realm of hard cider. If it comes in clear glass vs. brown or green, might be a better indicator. In general brown glass and green glass filters out more uv light damage than clear glass and so the cider or beer will taste fresher and better, than cider stored in clear glass, especially if it's kept out under sunlight or flourescent lights which really do affect the product in a short amount of time.

Only just seen this thread Steve, I don't know what drew me too it

Don snr, I'm on my way

Don jnr, its Mr Lang to you