Simple Hard Apple Cider Recipe
| 4 1/2 | Gal. | Apple Juice |
| 2 to 3 | Lbs. | Cane Sugar |
| 1 | Pkt. | Beer or Wine Yeast |
Combine and thoroughly mix the ingredients in a clean five gallon carboy. Place a fermentation lock on the carboy and allow to ferment to completion in a cool, dark location. You will know the ferment is done when the fermentation lock stops percolating, about two weeks. The more sugar you add, the longer it takes (and the stronger the resulting beverage). Bottle. Age two weeks and enjoy! Hard to get any simpler than that!
This recipe has both economy and simplicity going for it. You can have a batch of cider underway and fermenting in your basement in less than 15 minutes. You can use any commercial pasteurized apple juice. Some premium brands of juice make a tastier cider but whatever is on sale will work just fine. Frozen apple juice concentrate may be used in this recipe as well with the added step of mixing the concentrate with water according to the directions on the container. Or, if cost is no objection, you could substitute some or all of the sugar in this recipe for frozen apple juice concentrate (undiluted). This will make for an extra tart, flavorful cider! Concentrate of other fruits and berries are fair to use as well.
Cane or table sugar is normally to be avoided in most homebrew recipes, as it can impart a cidery flavor to your beverage and is generally regarded as inferior for brewing purposes. If you have a considerable amount of money in ingredients and your recipe calls for sugar, it doesn't make sense to scrimp and use table sugar. Corn sugar is the way to go. But this is an economical recipe and cidery taste is what we are going for anyway. Fermenting at a cooler temperature (below room temperature, but not chilly like the fridge) and bottle conditioning will reduce the undesirable by-products of using table sugar. More sugar will result in a stronger beverage. Using the full three pounds of sugar in this recipe will result in a strong cider (around 6 percent alcohol). Remember to pace yourself!
When your ferment is complete, carefully siphon the contents of your carboy to another, clean carboy to leave behind the spent yeast and other sediment in the old vessel. This sediment is harmless, but it can impair the clarity of your bottled cider. You may also want to thoroughly dissolve 1/2 cup table sugar in the cider at this point to carbonate it when it is bottled. This is called priming. Basically, it restarts the ferment in the bottles to produce just enough carbon dioxide gas to make your cider fizzy when you drink it.
Bottle the cider. It takes about 50 twelve ounce bottles to bottle 4 and 1/2 gallons of cider. Allow the cider to age in the bottles for at least two weeks. This conditioning step is important- it is necessary for carbonation to occur if you added priming sugar before bottling. Carbonated or not, cider improves dramatically after it has aged in bottles for a while. Trust me, it is definitely worth the wait! Also, aging the bottled cider somewhere where a big spill is tolerable is prudent (not the wife's sewing room, for example). Overpriming and premature bottling when the ferment is not yet complete are common brewing mistakes which can have explosive results. Literally. It never hurts to let a fermentation vessel sit a few days after bubbling stops to be sure that all the sugar in the cider has fermented.
If you happen to live in a climate where temperatures drop below freezing in the winter, you may want to consider making applejack instead of immediately bottling the fermented cider. This is done by allowing your cider to partially freeze and separating the unfrozen cider from the pure ice. Repeated freezing and separating concentrates the alcohol in the cider and results in a potent, liquor-like beverage. This method is called "jacking" and is covered in detail in the book.