Before we get started it’s necessary to note that homemade beer and cider are legal to produce in the USA and Canada as long as you don’t sell them, or try to distill them. Further, you need to be of legal drinking age to possess any alcohol-even if it is homemade. That said, let’s get on to how to make your own hard cider.
What you’ll need to make your own cider:
-One gallon of 100% Apple Juice (From concentrate is fine!)
-Yeast (More on that later)
-An Airlock OR one foot of flexible plastic tubing
-One carton of frozen apple juice concentrate
-An empty plastic milk or apply juice jug
-Empty bottles (Grolsch swing-top beer bottles work great)
(You if you want to make a larger or smaller batch, just double all ingredients or halve all ingredients etc.)
Apple Juice: As I said above apple juice from concentrate is fine. Homebrew snobs will tell you that you should only use fresh unpasteurized apple juice to start with. I’ve tried both and honestly there’s not much difference in taste, but there’s a big difference in price. If this is your first time, definitely go with the cheap stuff. You can try out fancier recipes after you already know how to make your own beer and cider.
Yeast: Bread yeast will work OK, but you’re better off if you can find brewers yeast. Champagne yeasts will work fine for this. I have made some really excellent hard ciders using Lalvlin EC-1118 yeast which you can buy at Homebrewery.com for only $.85 per packet. Trust me-it’s worth the extra $.50 to just buy some champagne yeast than to use bread yeast.
Airlock: If you’ve already got one, you probably don’t need instructions on how to use it.
If you don’t have an Airlock: Buy one foot of flexible plastic tubing about 1/4 inch in diameter. Drill a hole in the milk jug cap slightly smaller than the flexible tube diameter. Push one end of the tube through the hole about an inch inside the jug. Bend the tube into a “U” shape and hold it in place with tape or a twist tie. Pour one or two inches of water into the tube and your homemade airlock is ready. You can also just put the other end of the tube into a cup of water. Here is a link to a picture of some homemade airlocks from a Northern Brewer Forum. You should buy an airlock if you plan to make your own beer or cider often-they only cost about $3-4.
Now to make the cider…
1) Let the juice warm up to room temperature if it is already cold. Add 1/2 teaspoon of yeast for each gallon of apple juice. Give it a gentle stir.
2) Put the airlock back on and leave it in a dark place (if you let it ferment in sunlight may end up with a “skunky” taste, you will probably not like.) After several days you should see the airlock bubbling as the fermentation produces carbon dioxide gas.
3) Wait until the bubbling has stopped. This will probably be 2-3 weeks later. When the bubbling has completely stopped you need to sweeten your homemade cider. Add the carton of frozen apple juice concentrate (use one carton per gallon of cider.) If you would like more of a dry taste for your cider, add less.
4) You need to decide how you will carbonate your cider. This is the trickiest part when learning how to make your own beer or cider. If you will drink it within a week or two, use 4A). If you want to keep it longer, use 4B).
4A) Put your cider in to bottles with the lid tightly closed. The additional sugar from the frozen apple juice concentrate will produce more carbon dioxide and carbonate the cider. After two days, put the bottles in a refrigerator. From this point the bottles must stay cold until they are ready to drink or the yeast will ferment all the sugar and it will not be sweet. Further if the bottles are not kept cold, they can even explode if fermentation continues too long!
4B) Quickly warm the cider to 180 degrees F in a large pot with a lid. This will kill yeast and stop fermentation. Once the cider has cooled down until it is no longer hot to the touch (warm is OK) add 1-2 pounds of dry ice per gallon of cider to the mixture and stir occasionally to prevent the dry ice from freezing to part of the cider. When all the dry ice has dissolved (or the cider is starting to freeze) you can bottle the cider. Cider produced in this way will last for a long time and there is no risk of the bottles exploding.
5) Sit back and enjoy the fruits of your labor by having a homemade hard cider.
Now that you know how to make your own hard cider, you can try to make homemade beer!
I made three gallons of cider using this recipe for a Halloween party for the people in my office one year…it was all gone within one hour! It was a party favorite.
