How I came to make cyder
Fifteen years ago I came across a company called Vigo supplies - a West Country firm who supply domestic apple and wine presses and all the paraphernalia. I bought a small shredder to smash the apples into a pulp and a press to extract the juice from the mash. The juice of course is pure apple juice and an unadulterated taste which sets all the taste buds tingling. You can of course just drink the juice which will keep for about 3 to 4 days in a fridge, unless you pasteurise it, which lengthens its life.
How to make cyder
When I first decided to attempt the next stage - cyder making - I used wine yeast as a catalyst to start the fermentation. Then by accident I realised that there is enough natural yeast in the apple juice to start fermentation. In a small home production you use 1 gallon narrow necked jars with an air trap (the same as used in homemade wine production). You wait approximately 4 days for fermentation to begin and approximately 5 to 7 days for it to complete.
When fermentation has stopped, you draw off the cyder with a syphon into used 500 ml beer or cyder bottles. These must be sterilised (I use baby sterilising tablets in water to clean the bottles). Then you cap the bottles (buy a cheap capping tool and crown caps), leave it to settle for a fortnight, then DRINK!
This is of course still cyder (and appears at farm gates in the West Country) with nothing added. For sparkling cider merely add a small teaspoon of sugar to each 500 ml bottle which will start a slight secondary fermentation which will give you fine sparkling cyder.
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