Any cider makers on here? Must be!

It's quite a skill making something drinkable, blending varieties. Just scrump loads of apples and make crumbles.

You'll need a vat and a couple of dead rodents for added rustic flavour.

So, is it worth a go?

It's fun, but you need the right kind of apples, depending on what you want to achieve. We tried it with pears, which are actually dessert pears and hence very sweet. This means lots of sugar but not much malic acid or tannin or whatever it is that makes them sharp. The sugar all fermented leaving very little else, so it ended up as a sort of pear wine after the first fermentation or after the second basically just alcoholic slightly sparkling water. Which was great mixed with summer fruit squash or other things, but pretty tasteless on its own. Very mild though.

We later found out you're meant to pick conference pears well before they drop, i.e. in mid August, this might've helped. But basically use apples with some bite.

I made a few bottles last year, the apples were fed into a whole fruit juicer and I chucked in some beer yeast. Once it had fermented out I bottles it in champagne bottles with a small amount of sugar and yeast. It made a very drinkable light sparkling cider.

Me and a mate of mine have tried this a few times with a mix of eating apples (Cox orange pippins) and cookers (Bramley) and to be honest unless i can get the specific cider apples i don't think i'd bother again. That said it is fun to do and there are several ways to go about it.

Option 1, traditional method, crush and press apples place juice in bottles and allow to ferment using the natural yeast on the apple skins, this can be a little hit and miss, one year we inadvertently made sparkling cider vinegar! and it can taste a little sour. If you do go this route then remember to monitor the bottles and release the pressure every now and again or they can explode.

Option 2, crush and press the apples and transfer to a sterilised fermenting bucket and treat with a campden tablet overnight to suppress the natural yeast, you can also check the gravity at this point and add more sugar to increase the final alcohol level. The next day add a packet of commercial cider yeast and leave to ferment out and start to drop clear. If you want it sparkling then transfer to bottles with some priming sugar.

For equipment you'll need something to pulp the fruit, drill attachments are available, and a bucket. Then something to press the resulting pulp, then a fermenting bucket if going with option 2 and screw top bottles for bottling.

We juiced our pears with two 99p buckets, a step stool, a tea towel and a piece of 2x4.

Drill a small hole in the side of one bucket, at the bottom, then put it on a stool. Mash the fruit with the 2x4 and the juice runs out of the hole into the second bucket underneath through a tea towel. Then dump the pulp into the tea towel and wring the rest of the juice into the bucket.

I'll happily volunteer to be a taste tester. Free of charge, of course. Just need a taxi back home 😎

Sounds like fun, and cheap!

Got me thinking now 🤔

I’ll happily volunteer to be a taste tester. Free of charge, of course. Just need a taxi back home 😎

Ahhh, my 1st victim volunteer!
Added bonus in that it’s not far to drive you home!

I've done it a couple of times, not by the approved approach.

blitz apples in the food processor and then use a press to get the juice, put the juice in a demijohn with a little champagne yeast - leave for a couple of week until it stops bubbling. then bottle, adding a little sugar to each bottle and leave for about 6-8 weeks.

Result was a cider that was quiet tart. Left a few bottles for a couple of years and they've improved / mellowed to be quite drinkable.

@esselgruntfuttock I think I've spare press you can have. I'll need to do some digging about for it though

Result was a cider that was quiet tart. Left a few bottles for a couple of years and they’ve improved / mellowed to be quite drinkable.

Same here, there's probably a way of stopping it fermenting out completely to leave some sweetness, but I don't know how. You can add some sugar syrup to taste if you like, once you've opened the bottle.

My ex gave it a go a few times. We had a big old apple tree in the back garden. It produced something like 30-50 liters of barely drinkable gutrot two years on the bounce. First year we winged it and crushed a load and fermented it, second year got more scientific with it and did different batches with varying amounts of sugar and yeast, some being left natural etc. Still vile. You need the right apples to start with really. Having a surplus of industrial grade chemistry equipment is helpful, but you need the right stuff to start with.

You’ll need a vat and a couple of dead rodents for added rustic flavour

I believe wasps are a critical ingredient too

A timely thread as Mrs Binners had floated this idea only yesterday when a neighbour invited anybody round to take as many apples as they like off their loaded trees

Think we might give it a go.

We had a big old apple tree in the back garden. It produced something like 30-50 liters of barely drinkable gutrot two years on the bounce.

Only tried it the once - the tree in the garden was chucking not vey edible apples so basically just crushed them and added some beer yeast I had kicking about. Should have washed them as the natural yeast (Stavanger) went up to a stupid amount (8%??) just in a big plastic bin and in an effort to save it I added some champagne yeast and a teaspoon of sugar.

Best I can say was you got pretty wrecked - tasted vile like the worst pineau ever.

"A deep, old gold, white pineau provides a feeling of fullness with dry fruit flavours, almond, walnuts and quince."
^^nothing like that ..

I've done it,

Yes you can just press any old apples, you'll still get something that tastes nicer than most supermarket stuff. Even just fermenting boxed apple juice with some tea bags produces something nicer than a lot of commercial ciders!

It's ridiculously hard work. First you need a scratter, this pulps the apples. You can get hand cranked ones, and then attach a drill but it still takes forever.

You then need to press the pulp to get some juice out. Be prepared for how little juice comes out, and the sinking realization that you're going to need sackfulls of apples to make even a few pints of cider. And that 20 minutes you just spent scratting and pressing the first batch has barely made a pint. It took a full day to produce about 25l of cider, after the first cycle through the process it's just really dull for the next 50 or so.

Then there's the easy way:
1) gather up the apples.
2) take them to a local community press and get them to do it on a semi-industrial scale in a few minutes. They'll pulp them in an adapted garden shredder and have a hydraulic press.
3) take the juice home, add metabisulphate (campden) to kill the wild yeast, and add some homebrew yeast and ferment/bottle as you would for homebrew beer.

But be aware of just how many apples you will need! You'll need several trugs worth to make it worthwhile, not just a few carrier bags picked up on a walk.

Alternatively, look up some recipes for country/hedgerow wine. All the enjoyable bits, without the hard work. At it's simplest you can just pick some blackberries and add them to shop bought apple juice until it's sugary enough to make wine.

Unless you have access to proper vintage cider apple varieties it's a lot of work and trial and error which will result in an acidic bland drink. The type of apple really is key. We had various dessert varieties and two Bramley trees and for ten years I couldn't get a decent drink out of them. I planted two Dabinett trees and they just started to mature before we moved house and I'm sat here drinking last year's cider from them and it's a pretty nice drink. Best advice if you really want to have a go is buy Andrew Lea's book. He's a legend in cider making circles. I rescued one of the younger Dabinetts and planted it in our new place. It'll produce enough to get 20 bottles a year in about 5 years time and that will do me. Cider apples are either bittersweets or bittersharps and there are a handful you can still get on modest sized rootstock. Dabinett (a bittersweet) is one of the classic apples that self pollinates annually and you can get a decent drink out of it as a single variety.

Yes I do.

Short advice

Apple pressing and presses is the easy and cheap bit.

The hard bit / expensive bit is scratting (pulping) the apples before you press. I use an old garden shredder for this.

Specific cider apples give a better product. It's way too early for those to be ripe. If you are using eaters / cookers a ratio of 70% eaters / 30% cookers is OK. Any more cookers than that will make the product very tart / acidic.

A fool proof way of getting an OK product quickly is treat with campdens to sterilise then ferment with a yeast and added nutrient.

A better product comes if you just allow the juice to ferment naturally. It takes longer and if it goes OK gives a better product. But this is inconsistent, the product may not be clear and there is more risk of it failing and ending up with a fausty product or even vinegar.

I just bought mulled cider from the Cider Bus at EOTR. Perfect thing to end the day as it gets chilly, sat by the bonfire.