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Author Topic: anyone have a Cider Recipe?  (Read 4166 times)

Offline Pi

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anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« on: April 28, 2012, 03:14:15 pm »
My LHBS dont carry the kits anymore.
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Offline Joe Sr.

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #1 on: April 28, 2012, 03:53:54 pm »
All I've ever done is add yeast to cider.

Not much of a recipe, but I don't think you need to do anything more.
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Offline denny

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anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #2 on: April 28, 2012, 03:55:56 pm »
All I've ever done is add yeast to cider.

Not much of a recipe, but I don't think you need to do anything more.

That's about it.


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Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #3 on: April 28, 2012, 04:11:55 pm »
First you get a good juice with a blend of apples.

Add yeast. Or not, if you want the wild yeast to do their thing.

Wait.
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Offline The Professor

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #4 on: April 29, 2012, 12:44:36 am »
All of the responses so far have nailed it.  There is really no recipe...just juice and yeast (and if your juice is freshly pressd and un-pasteurized, the yeast is even optional).

hopfenmalz does make a point though that I have found to be a key to good cider:  the juice should be a blend of apple varieties. 
And I'll go one step further and say that having some tart varieties in the mix greatly enhances the end result. 
Some may disagree, but I am of the opinion that using strictly sweet juice makes for some pretty lackluster cider.
AL
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Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #5 on: April 29, 2012, 06:22:55 am »
The first cider I made used juice from a local orchard that mainly has eating apples, and the cider is sweet and is to drink with the doughnuts. It was not such a good hard cider. One dimensional sums it up.

One of the guys in the club said he used juice from a mill near Howell, MI. This is a small family orchard, but they have many of the older heritage apples. A couple I can remember off the top of my head are Baldwins and Arkansas Blacks. That made a much better cider.

Our club now has a good relationship with the owners. We have done 3 cider pressing days with them over the last 3 years. This year we did 5 differnet blends, for >300 gallons of juice. The orchard uses apples that they can't sell over the counter due to blemishes, small size, or lack of demand for an obscure variety, so they get to use those apples. It is a fun day that many of us look forward to.
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Offline Jimmy K

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #6 on: May 03, 2012, 08:23:41 am »
I shutter to think what a cider kit is.
http://wiki.homebrewersassociation.org/CiderRecipes
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Offline garc_mall

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #7 on: May 03, 2012, 12:02:28 pm »
recipe:

Buy cider from reputable orchard
Add To carboy
Put Airlock on
wait.

Offline skrag6713

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #8 on: May 09, 2012, 04:07:00 pm »
you can also make hard cider using store bought apple juice or sweet cider.  be careful though to make sure that there are no preservatives listed anywhere on the label.  then just add yeast and any adjuncts and you can produce a fairly mediocre cider.  it's not terrible, but it's no crispin.

Offline hopfenundmalz

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #9 on: May 09, 2012, 04:39:13 pm »
you can also make hard cider using store bought apple juice or sweet cider.  be careful though to make sure that there are no preservatives listed anywhere on the label.  then just add yeast and any adjuncts and you can produce a fairly mediocre cider.  it's not terrible, but it's no crispin.

A guy in our club won the BOS in our competition with a cider made with store bought cider juice. He couldn't remember the brand, as he had bought it when a college student in Florida before starting grad school at MSU. It was excellent cider. Who knew you could get good store bought juice in Florida?
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Offline jeffy

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #10 on: May 09, 2012, 05:00:14 pm »
you can also make hard cider using store bought apple juice or sweet cider.  be careful though to make sure that there are no preservatives listed anywhere on the label.  then just add yeast and any adjuncts and you can produce a fairly mediocre cider.  it's not terrible, but it's no crispin.

A guy in our club won the BOS in our competition with a cider made with store bought cider juice. He couldn't remember the brand, as he had bought it when a college student in Florida before starting grad school at MSU. It was excellent cider. Who knew you could get good store bought juice in Florida?

Not me and I live here. 
A guy in our club makes a lot of winning ciders from store bought apple juice, but they don't seem to do well in competitions out of the south.
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Offline The Professor

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #11 on: May 09, 2012, 05:46:07 pm »
A guy in our club won the BOS in our competition with a cider made with store bought cider juice. He couldn't remember the brand, as he had bought it when a college student in Florida before starting grad school at MSU. It was excellent cider. Who knew you could get good store bought juice in Florida?

I made a batch of cider once using store bought juice and while it wasn't quite like using good, freshly pressed raw cider, it still turned out surprisingly good.

The trick was to add some frozen Granny Smith concentrate to tart the typically sweet supermarket cider/juice up just a bit.  I didn't think of it at the time, but some acid blend (the kind used in winemaking) would probably do a similar thing.
AL
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Offline kraftwerk

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Re: anyone have a Cider Recipe?
« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2012, 12:39:06 am »
I've tried with Whole Foods brand unfiltered stuff. Pretty good although it came out really cloudy and peachy tasting. I'd recommend using cider specific yeast if you can. The dude at the LBS convinced me to go with a dry english ale yeast. Bad idea. Use some kind of fining if you don't want the cloudiness.
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