When I'm not gardening I like to brew beer and cider. I have an apple tree at the bottom of my garden that has loads of apples. Its no Magners but its just about drinkable
We have loads of apples on old trees, and lots go to waste each year (including fallers). Hadn;t thought of converting them into cider. Is it easy to make cider? I've brewed beer before, but only from "just add water" type kits.
How do you press the fruit, Ive often thought about cider making as I have acess to unlimited quantitys of apples.
Hi, when I read your post I misread it to whilst I am gardening I like to drink cider! I thought-someone after my own heart. But seriously, I can get apples too and would love to save money on the old golden nectar. Total recycling-I would be doing it purely to save the planet-obviously
Im no expert as i only started last year. Here goes. I first chopped the apples in a bucket and then I used a screw down press with which i extracted the juice. Made enough to fill a 5 gallon container and added the yeast (bought from a brewers shop). After a couple of days it stops bubbling up (fermenting) and then I syphoned it into strong plastic containers. Kept it in a cold place for 6 months and that was it. I'm sure you can get more technical ways of making it but mine tasted really good and a good party was had by many one night last month.
Is the quality of the apples important? Bruised, fallen, stored-for-a-while ... that sort of thing. Thanks
I think it helps to have several different types if you can but I only used one type and it was ok. fallen apples are ok but try not to add too many bruised ones
Do you have to sterilize it at any point during the process? (Not that I'm any expert but) I would have thought, with it being made out of real fruit, that there was a fair chance of bacteria getting into the mix and spoiling it? My dad does a lot of homebrewing, mainly wines, (sometimes from kits, sometimes from fruit,) and I seem to recall him talking about bacteria, and even wild yeasts potentially, causing problems.
With wine you use camden tablets to kill off any yeast and bacteria but with cider your relying on the natural yeasts, least thats what I seem to remember although Ive only ever made wine not cider.
Hmmn! I brew beer and wine but it sounds like you're brewing "Scrumpy". Stay close to a toilet the next day:D
Best (or most lethal!) wine we ever made was when we were impoverished students. We picked blackberries and used Yeastvite tablets to ferment them. As far as regards camden tablets we only used them in our brewing/wine-making days to sterilise containers.
I'm not sure what I'm doing really lol. But it tasted quite nice so I'm gonna make some more this year hopefully. I sterilize the containers so I think its quite safe from bacteria. I'm making beer from a kit as we speak. The finished product cant come quick enough
