Quick, easy, cheap good cider (that also makes brandy)

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Stew8
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Quick, easy, cheap good cider (that also makes brandy)

Post by Stew8 »

This is my easy, quick and cheap cider (hard cider) recipe

This recipe ferments out and tastes dry. if you like it slightly sweeter, add cordial or syrup (elderflower/raspberry/Vimto) to a glass and top it up with the cider. It’s proved popular with both sexes and a perfect party drink at about 5%.
Once I added sugar and had cider at 12%... you don’t hear that train coming...I was stone cold sober one minute and slurring and staggering the next.

Recipe
20 litres or 5 gallons of the cheapest Apple juice you can buy, I use ASDA smart price for 55p a litre. It has around 11g of sugar per 100ml.
https://groceries.asda.com/product/appl ... uice/32823
I noticed Lidl had apple juice at the same price but had 15g of sugar per 100ml.
Yeast - generic wine yeast. If you’re running through the still, bread yeast works.
No nutrient
IG is whatever you getting from the Apple juice
Ferment out in a week or so

A cold break settles the yeast, I’ve put the whole fermenter in a fridge with the shelves removed and bottled from the open fridge the next day or two. This step is the secret to quality cider. I’ve noticed bread yeast did not clear as well as wine yeast does.

To bottle cider, I bought large supermarket plastic water bottles filled with spring water (buy apple juice at the same time).
https://groceries.asda.com/product/stil ... 0003126902
Water bottles are 17p for 2 litres; tip out the water into the garden and fill the now empty bottle with cider. Bottles are sterile and can take serious pressure if you want to prime them so it’s fizzy. I’ve not done it, so can’t advise.
It does get better with age but it’s gone so quickly and easy to make, hence it’s magic and disappears.

You will get asked how did you make it and you are faced with a choice - fess up and explain it’s apple concentrate juice from China and made to look local or have a long winded story about a donkey walking in circles for hours to crush apples, bare breasted....it’s your story so make it outlandishly entertaining.

To make brandy, I just decanted from the fermentor into the pot,

Run in a pot or in pot mode
Discard foreshots as usual
collect cuts in about 150ml, 5oz from around 70% to 40% 140-80 proof

I’ve ended up with a litre of 65% with an apple-ly aroma and after taste, the rest is for the gin run.

Generation 2 started by topping up the left over trub in the existing fermentor with more Apple juice. I’ll add a litre or so of back set to enhance the flavour using ujssm methodology.
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