Any Hard Cider Guys on Here

Ive made quite a few hard ciders. Keep the temps low and ferment slow without any added sugar unless you are after a apple wine. Around here, local fresh pressed is way too expensive even in season. I use Musselmans and some granny smiths during this time of year. Costco's regular cider is Musselmans too btw. When good cider starts coming in season i use Hayes cider from Costco. Its under $5 a gallon and in the refrigerated section near the orange juice.
 
Use an ale yeast like Nottinghams or Safale S04 yeast. Wyeast labs 4766 cider and 4184 sweet mead yeast is also tasty. If you cant get a specialty cider yeast try Cotes Des Blancs or Montrachet.. Pretty much any brew shop will have those. I cant stress enough to ferment as cold as possible and don't get in a hurry.
 
Back sweeten with frozen concentrates after stabilizing if you want sweet. Cranapple cider has been a huge hit for me. One can per gallon of cider is what i normally use.
 
My favorite though is cyser aka apple mead. Its cider and honey fermented. After it ages for 6 months or more the flavors really start to pop. Pretty much all ciders will benefit from some time to age.
 
Black berry apple cider.
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Cran-apple made with fresh cran-berries in the jug and cyser in the bottles
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Regular cider and cyser
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How about black berry wine from my blackberries
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I also make rice wines
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And red rice wine which is FANTASTIC btw
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ShoMeDaSauce

I've been doing cider for about 5 years along with wine. Musselmans is my plan B if I can't get hard cider juice. I usually get it from my wine juice place, Walkers juice, for $5 a gallon,really nice juice,brix is right on.A guy at work got me some regular cider from his friend at the fruit place and I really liked that,hope to get 10-20 gallons this year.

I have been using Lavlin EC-1118 but it has a more yeasty taste, I'm probably going back to old school RedStar champagne yeast,better flavor.

I am trying 3 gallons of straight cranberry cider,hope it's not to tart?


I usually do anywhere from 25-50 gallons a year,love that stuff

I never back sweeten,only back carbonate, corn sugar and use the flip top or Grolsch bottles
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ShowMeDaSauce said:
EC-1118 is champagne yeast and usually very neutral in flavor. The only thing i really like about it is that it is very cold tolerant. IIRC it will ferment down into the lower 50s.
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The last 3 carboys I made with it had a strong yeast taste, I read that before on the distillers site and it seems true. Probably stick to Redstar, it never steered me wrong.

I see some of the fancy yeasts at the brew shop but not sure if the flavor is any better, I had some a friend of mine made and it didn't have that cider taste like mine.
 
Have you tried K1V-1116? Its another Lalvin cold tolerant yeast.
 
Ive tried Safcider and Brewers Best Cider House Select. Neither one impressed me. The Wyeast 4766 though i thought was very good but a little slow to start.
 
ShowMeDaSauce said:
Have you tried K1V-1116? Its another Lalvin cold tolerant yeast.
 
Ive tried Safcider and Brewers Best Cider House Select. Neither one impressed me. The Wyeast 4766 though i thought was very good but a little slow to start.
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I'm tempted to make a gallon with redstar Bakers yeast,a couple of guys have tried it and it has as they said," an old school cider flavor". Not sure if it is really yeasty .

I might go to my brew shop and get some cider yeast to try it.


My dad has a wild pear tree in his back yard,im going to give that a try this year.
 
My first ever hard cider i made as a kid was with Red Star bakers yeast. I thought it was purty darn good at the time. It actually tasted like apple cider instead of a white wine. Of course it got consumed well before the yeast ate all the sugar.
 
I actually don't care for champagne yeasts when making hard cider. To me they strip out the apple flavor and ferment very fast. Another one i avoid is 71B-1122, it eats some of the malic acid and converts it to a milder lactic acid. If your juice/cider is extremely tart such as a cran-apple you might like it though.
 
I've done some kit cider previously, used to get a kit that had dried apples in it, came from Canada I believe, haven't found it anymore.
Anyway, I've got a big pear tree and it produced well this year, so I finally got a juicer.  I have two almost 6 gallon batches going.  One I need to keg up, the other I need to transfer from bucket to carboy for clarifying.  I suplemented the first batch with some corn sugar to up the gravity and the second batch I added 3 lbs of honey.  I'm surprised at how much faster they fermented than beer (which I make a fair amount of, IPA's my favorite).  It may have been the Champagne Yeast.
 
I plan to back sweeten with some Stevia liquid and force carbonate in corny kegs. Based on the taste, I may add some additional pear or apple flavoring also.
 
On a sad but happy note, my 'kegerator' used to be in a 7 cu ft chest freezer where I had the tower attached to the lid, but it is dying, won't get below 50F.  So, She Who Must Be Obeyed authorized my purchase of an actual Kegerator fridge. No more removing tap handles, moving the beast, lifting the lid, etc.  Front door access and holds three 5 gal kegs.  Just ordered it and should be in next week.  Gonna also add a third tap to my Perlick tower just for my cider.  Life is good.
 
If these ciders turn out well and the tree puts out again next year, I will probably look at a different juicer.  For this batch I got the kind that spins fast and grinds the crap out of the fruit.  It leaves a lot of solids in the juice and a lot of foam.  I will probably spring for one of the screw press type juicers.
 
Costco has Hayes fresh pressed cider in stock again. In my area its only $3.99 a gallon. Its just pasteurized with nothing else added. This years Hayes cider is kinda sweet for my tastes. It could probably use some fresh Granny Smiths added to it or any tart apple. A bit of malic acid would do the trick too. This batch also looks more cloudy than last years. Appears to be less filtered so it may need pectic enzyme to clear up faster.
 
I just got done bottling a Graff. 7 gallons total, 5 gallons fresh pressed cider, 2 gallons hoppped wort. It tastes and smells great flat, so I'm sure it will be very drinkable for the holidays once carbed and conditioned. I bottle primed it with brown sugar, which I've used before for stouts/porters a few times. OG was 1.071 FG was 1.011 with wyeast 1056. Very good apple flavor and aroma, a bit tart, with a malty finish.

 
I just opened a bottle of semi sweet apple mead (cyser) i made last October. All i can say is OUTSTANDING. Way better than it was at 1-3 months old. Now i have to scramble through my records to find the exact recipe i used.
 
Why in the hell didn't i save/age more????!!!!!!
 
At least i did resist "over sampling" my blackberry wine. I have 5 bottles worth that are about 6 months old now. I also have a mulberry that is even older.
 
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