Fancy some home-made cider to go with that lazy summer’s afternoon?

The process of making cider is simple, but can be time consuming. You definitely won’t be sitting down to drink your cider in 20 minutes, so be patient and appreciate your cider fully after waiting a few months.

For this, you will need some apples (as you probably guessed), a press, hydrometer a clean bucket, some demijohns, Campden tablets and possibly some yeast (apple yeast works best).

The first step is to choose your apples, sort them, and wash them.

Technically you can use any apples, so try a few different mixtures and have a tasting session at the end of the maturing process.

As a general rule 9 kg (20 lbs) of apples produces 4.5 litres (1 gallon) of juice.

Clean and crush the apples

Remove and branches or leaves and discard any that have started to turn brown and wash the apples thoroughly.

Start chopping the apples, this allows you to remove any that may have been eaten by insects, and makes the crushing process a little easier.

Next comes the grinding/crushing/pulping of the apples. Use whatever tools you have at your disposal to crush the apples so that you are left with a pulp. If you have any children, give each of them a rolling pin and watch them go crazy! The pulp can turn brown very quickly due to oxidisation, but that is normal and nothing to worry about.

Once you have your pulp, it’s time to transfer it to your press (you can buy these from Amazon or do a quick search on Google for “cider press”). This allows you to leave the pulp behind and have just the apple juice left. Pour this juice into your demijohns and add a Campden tablet per demijohn. This will prevent bacteria spoiling your cider, but will have the affect of slowing the start of fermentation. To battle this, we’ll add the yeast to the mix later.

Fermentation

The first thing we need to do before the start of fermentation is to take a hydrometer reading of the juice. To do this, place the hydrometer in the juice and we will see a reading where the hydrometer is level with the liquid. We can then use this reading to work out how much alcohol will be present after fermentation. See the table below for reference.

SG Reading Final Reading (end of fermentation) Approx ABV (Alcohol By Volume)

To increase the start gravity add caster sugar (or white granulated sugar) and dissolve well. For cider we are looking ideally for start gravity in the region of 1040 to 1045. Any more alcohol than this will spoil the balance. Do not get carried away trying to make it to strong. To reduce the SG add water.

Start the fermentation as soon as possible after pressing the juice. Add the yeast and leave the demijohns in a warm cupboard. You will be able to see the juice fermenting as it happens. Fermentation generally lasts for about 14 days, but I advise you to mature your cider after this, and wait a few months until pouring into bottles. Once you’ve been patient, remove the juice from the demijohns into a glass and have a taste.

Once done, you have your very own apple cider, waiting for a glass of ice!