It's Cider-tastic!

Recently, we went for a bit of 4WD fun with some mates up through the Bells Line of Road, taking in Bilpin.

If you don't already know, Bilpin is pretty famous for apples. Many, many different varieties.

However, we were a bit late in the season so I expected less kinds to be available. In fact, there was only one kind and at the time of day we went through there was only one kind to be had. I don't even know what kind it is to be certain. However, at the price, the quality is excellent has made for some exceptional eating.

I bought the apples with a view to making cider. Delicious apple cider!

So, we grabbed about 12 kilos of apples which co-incidentally produced around 6 litres of premium grade juice, with the real ever-so-slightly golden-amber hue that was in real, fresh apple juice so long ago.


Here's the recipe:
** Common Cider
* 24 litres apple juice (6 litres freshly made, 18 litres Aldi)
* 1 x S-04 yeast
* Ferment until SG is stable
* Bottle, adjusting the priming dose to your preferred level of carbonation
* Cellar / mature for at least two weeks. Longer is better.
* OG = 1048


And here's some notes for you to consider for when you try this:

* Juice:
Apples nominally produce 40 - 55% juice by volume compared to weight. In other words, you will get about 4 - 5.5 litres of juice from ten kilos of apples. Smaller apples, less juice. These were fairly large eating apples just past their 'looks good' prime.

* Pasteurisation / anti-microbe warfare:
Apples, for the most part are reasonably clean. However, as with any fruit or vegetable they are likely to have been sprayed with some form of pesticide. You must wash them well to assist in removing any residue which may be on the skins.

Not all apples are picked from the trees. Some have fallen. Most orchards use some kind of fertiliser and often it's chook poo (chicken droppings for those of you who don't speak Australian). Chook poo is particularly nasty, biologically speaking, and can harbour some rather deadly bugs.

In addition, there may be wild yeasts living in or on the apple. These may be undesirable for your fermentation. In the case of this recipe, they're undesirable.

What to do? Pasteurise!

Cut and juice your apples as you would normally to make fruit juice to drink. Put the total amount of freshly made juice into a large pot and heat to only 75C. Allow it to cool with a well-fitting lid on the pot. Pasteurisation complete.

Prior to adding the juice to the fermenter, skim off the crud. There is a thick layer of foamy brown stuff on top. The crud won't make your cider taste or look good. Skim it reasonably well. The rest will either drop out in the fermenter or float to the top. Floc up or down, so to speak.

The other option which some people prefer is Campden tablets or sodium metabisuplhite. This has been a reasonably common way of achieving the same effect as pasteurisation and lends itself to some other production methods. However, I'm not a fan because sometimes a sulphur aroma remains for quite some months after bottling.

* Not enough apples?
Go buy some preservative free apple juice. Aldi sells two litre for around $1.80-something at the time of writing. You could even use 100% commercial juice. Think of it this way - you will make 30 x 750 ml cider for about $22 plus yeast. Bargain! Cost at a bottle shop? $195.00 for a rather good one or about $1.35 for something less special.

* Why S-04 yeast?
It's a matter of personal preference. I chose S-04 because I like a little bit of residual sweetness in my ales and cider. You could use S-05 which will give a dryer result. However, according to some folk who have used it, the S-05 can result in too dry a finish and in some cases ferment to SG=<1.000. YMMV, etc.

There are other speciality yeasts from White Labs and Wyeast. Choose what you would prefer to be drinking.


Best of luck on your cidery adventure!

Cheers!!