Cider insider 2: the cider strikes back

So after my somewhat brief description of home cider making without an apple press today we'll be finishing off.

You'll need some bottles handy and the bungs or a straw (more on this in a minute).

So if you leave your pulp in the muslin hanging over a bucket overnight the weight of the pulp will squeeze most of the juice out a bit like cheese making.

Give the muslin another squeeze then discard the pulp (any ideas for uses other than recycling/ animal food?).

You should then have a bucket of icky apple juice probably with a lot of bits still in it and very cloudy.

Taste it. It should taste like the most Appley thing ever. (Better than a 5s anyway!).

So you're going to want to pass it through another sheet of muslin, just to get rid of most of the bits.

Then decant into some bottles.  

At this point you can dilute it if you feel its a little strong. You can also add shop bought apple juice if you think you haven't made enough.

Then grab a hydrometer. This piece of kit tells you the gravity of the situation (the Apple juice). You dunk it in a sample of the juice and record the reading somewhere.  This is your original gravity (og) and we'll use it later to calculate the alcohol content.

I then added a crushed campden tablet (read the instructions for quantity). This kills off any bad bacteria. Shake it!

You can then add your yeast. I'm using a champagne yeast, although cider yeasts are readily available.

Then add a bung and an airlock* and you're ready to go.  I couldn't find one of my airlocks so I fashioned one by making a hole in the bottle cap, feeding a straw through then connecting it to a pipe which leads to a cup of water.

*The airlock is there to let carbon dioxide out of the container which will be produced by the yeast, whilst not letting anything into the bottle like flys, bugs etc. If you don't put an airlock on and screw the lid on the bottle will expand with the trapped gas and explode! If you just leave the cap off crap would fall in and spoil it.

So then just leave to ferment.  It'll probably take a week or two,  I'll do another hydrometer test in a week or so, if it's the strength I want 4%+abv then I'll decant to smaller bottles to try and remove most of the sediment and then chill and drink!

If you're thinking of trying this at home here are a couple of resources and links to where I bought stuff,  I'm not affiliated with these companies/people I just used the stuff and liked it.

The Brewmart - got my starter kit from here, great site but the basket is a bit naff

Beer-kits.co.uk - got my champagne yeast from here worked quite well

Basic cider recipe (you need a cider press) 

Have fun!

Dom

Update:

The cider is great, if a bit on the sharp side (should that be cide?), so I have diluted it down with about 1:4 ratio of apple juice to the cider. I did this much after a few tasting tests also that was how much room I had left at the top of the bottles I used.

Good luck if your going to try it and let me know how you get on!