I have a large apple tree in my garden that gives an abundant crop of eating apples each year.

Most are given away or simply rot.

This year I want to utilise this crop and would love to make some cider..

How easy is this going to be and will I need an expensive press?

dessert apples dont make cider.

cider apples make cider.

You might be better off trying to make apple juice (mix with some sharp cooking apples to trim the sweetness back) and preserve it by pasteurising filled bottles in a boiling water bath

DOH!!

Jim’s Beer Kit Forum has a non-beer section…

Making cider is easy:
• take some apples (variety really not that important) and mash them up. You can either use an apple scratter or a large bit of wood in a bucket and hit them lots until they are broken up into smaller pieces.

• wrap this juicy mess up in some net curtains (or if you’re feeling posh, some muslin) and put it in a cider press (you can make your own for about £50 or buy one from eBay for a little bit more).

• press the apple pulp and collect the juice in a fermenting bucket.

• add some sulphites to kill off any bugs, then in a day or so add some yeast and sugar. More sugar = more alcohol.

• put the lid on and leave it somewhere warm to ferment

• after a couple of weeks when everything has calmed down, you need to rack the cider off and get rid of the sediment. The more times you do this, the clearer your cider will be.

• Finally, bottle it, or just drink it straight from the keg.

There are a few more specifics that you can pay attention to, but essentially that’s all cider making is. Homebrew forums is a good place to look, with a cider specific section.

Have fun

Mate made a press using a car jack last yr, instructions on line I think.

I press around 50-100 gallons a year for cider (the father in law presses apple juice and we have a tractor set up to press). This year I used a mix of cider and eating apples, mainly because I was offered them, but have pressed using solely eaters in the past, very much depends on the variety. Do you know what you have? If not just give it a go it probably won’t be that bad so long as you don’t mind rough cider.

You can use a garden shredder/mulcher, we wrap the apple mulch in towels or hessian sacks.

I don’t add any sugar or yeast, it will start fermenting itself if it is warm enough. I prefer a dry cider though, the father in law adds sugar or molasses to sweeten.

As stoner says, it could be worth doing a bit of juice and pasteurising as well if you have a bumper crop, which it looks like we’re due this year from the weight of our trees already.

May neighbour and I did quite a lot in 2011 from a bumper harvest from his trees. My cider was a bit meh, but I bottled it quite early. He left (forgot about) his in the barrel in the garage for 2 yrs and we cracked it open the other day. Not bad at all.

I had better luck with the perry (we’re lucky he has a couple of proper old skool perry pear trees) and that turned out excellent, but only one bottle of that left. So we shall probably make some more perry this year.

Mrs Stoner describes my neighbour as being a bit “Toad of Toad Hall”: when ever he gets a hobby urge he runs out and buys the kit. So Ive got access to a chopper and press whenever I want. I just bought a bucket, barrel, some water traps and s/h demi johns (for fruit wine).

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