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I am having a go at the easy cider as mentioned on here before. 5 cartons of co-op apple juice, some yeast and a little sugar to give it more strength. Still a bit cloudy at the moment and I am tempted to leave until the summer.

is that all that's in it? Are you making it in a bucket? or one of those beer-barrel looking things?

So very tempted now...

Oooh, ooh, does it have to be pure apple juice? or can it be the 'from concentrate' stuff?

I made it from concentrate and stuck it in a demi john. It fizzed up when I put the yeast in, just used a packet of yeast from home brew shop. I have stuck a bung in it then topped up with sugar to make it stronger and really that was it.

You could try adding some malic acid from the homebrew to compensate for the lack of cooking/crab apples?

*puts on the list of things to fill demijohns with*

Chris has made this before and is making another now. In addition to a rose wine, a plum, a parsnip, mead, orange wine and goodness knows what else!! The kitchen smell like a brewery and makes constant blooping noises!!! Think we may have to have a big party very soon!!! Is there a SSish annual "meeting" that we should attend/host????
Should we put this as a thread on the suggestions bit??? lol Waddya thing Andy? lol

PS Ferment the cider as dry as possible!!!

I did much the same, only with windfall/bruised apples from my tree that I put through a £8.99 Lidl's-special juicer.

I certainly got cider. In fact I got cider so dry that we've renamed it the "Cor-f***" vintage, because that's what you say when you drink it: first you screw up your face, wince a lot, possibly bend over double and then say "COR-F***!".

The only person who has proclaimed it "lovely" was my friend from the States who had Bell's Palsy last year and it mucked up all her tastebuds so that everything now tastes sweet. My cider was the only thing she'd tasted in 4 months which didn't taste sweet

Having said that, I've drunk quite a lot, and it's REALLY good used to cook chicken with. Mmmmmm!!!

My 2nd brewing experiment of the year was elderberry wine, which is a problem, because it tastes completely harmless - a bit like fruit cordial. After a couple of glasses, you are generally saying how harmless it is from a horizontal position, whilst slurring your speech a bit!

Definitely going to do more brewing this year!

Hi - I've just joined and probably doing this wrong but here goes- my first posting!

Reading about making cider - We 've got a glut of apples this year so decided to have a go. Bought a press from Machine Mart and produced a gallon of juice. We experimented by softening the crushed apples in the microwave and it seemed to help. I thought it might kill the yeast but it's bubbling away merrily. To crush the apples I made a hand crusher from two long lengths of wood hinged at one short end (nylon hinge) and shaped at the other end to form handles. As a refinement, a few strips of aluminium flooring strip at the crushing end. (I call it my "Camel Castrator"!)
The recipe says - don't sample until the cuckoo sings - can't wait

hi there driftaways welcome to the forum

I have some home pressed cider on the go too. racked it once and it tastes dang rough so far!! but we shall see!

hows the cider going??andy

Has anyone tried the ciderish recipe (http://www.selfsufficientish.com/ciderish.htm)
Never tried brewing alcohol before but I should be getting lots of apples from someone this week and want to do something useful with them
also where do you get a non-metallic knife from - never seen one! does the metal in the kettle count if so how do you boil the water for the recipe

non mettalic knife is amde of a kind of ceramic that contains carbide? - artificcial diamond in it and are uber sharp.

Cant imagine why the "no metal" instruction . . . though i would agree and sayy not to EVER brew in and aluminium pot - the acid in the fruit will disolve some and ALuminum is A NOT NICE THING to have floating around your body . . .
Stainless steel and cast iron are fine from a food toxicity POV but i guess there might well be loss of the tannin that you need as it would bind with and iron oxide in the metal pots and precipitate out as black/blue iron-tannate - quite harmeless in its self (in the ammounts that might be generated) but would unballance your cider.

if someone else has another explanation for the metal caveat i would love to hear it

I've just seen the prices of those ceramic knives!!!!

Where's the plastic picnic set???

I'm a brewer and I often wonder how much CO2 I add to the atmosphere each year, do you think there wold be a way of measuring up? to work out my brewing footprint?

kind thoughts, a bit off at a tangent but thats how the old nogin works
Deb