HOMEMADE CIDER PRESS

5/22/2012

More pics below...

Sure we could have walked half a block to the 24-hour Safeway and spent under $20 for four gallons of perfectly respectable apple cider....

But why do that when you can:

1. Make an apple press from scratch using leftover Redwood scraps from our fence project.

2. Hunt for wild apples in the local park only to discover that even though the trees were weighted down with delicious orbs this time last season, there isn't a single one in sight this year, and end up going to Berkeley Bowl to buy and haul home 20 lbs of various apples.

3. Core the apples and then blend them to get a chunky puree.

4. Put the puree in a sack of cheesecloth and press in the press.

5. Sample the delicious juice as it trickles beautifully from the tray in to our mouths. I mean glasses....

6. Boil the juice to remove bacteria.

7. Siphon the Juice from the pot in to the demijohns (carboys).

8. Add yeast and sugars. (We tried white sugar, brown sugar, and honey, in different gallon jugs to see which yielded the best cider.)

9. Pop in the airlocks to make sure everything stays pure and delightful.

10. Put the cider in a cool, dry place to ferment for 8 months.

11. Siphon the fermented cider in to bottles, add sugar and cap. Put back in to storage. (This phase is where the bubbles come from.

12. Let sit for 1 month, until cider becomes 'sparkling'.

13. Open bottles every two weeks to check for levels of deliciousness and bubbliness. (hm, bubbliness is not a word... bummer.)

14. After every tasting, make scrunchy-sour face, spew the disgusting fizzyness in to the sink, scrape tongue with toothbrush, recap the bottles, and return them to storage.

15. Move the 4 gallons of rancid cider to the shed for at least another 12 months or until the government allows us to permanently store the concoction in the huge secret warehouse-slash-bunker where Indiana Jones permanently stored the Ark of the Covenant.

16. Walk half a block to the 24-hour Safeway and buy a gallon of perfectly respectable apple cider.

4 Comments

9/16/2012 07:19:49 am

Hey, I just stumbled upon your post here. My wife and I are thinking of trying this same thing using the apples growing in our backyard. Any tips for us? Did you ever figure out a secret to fermenting?

Oren link

9/17/2012 06:16:32 am

Hey JJ,
If you have any intention of making a cider press (which is very fun to do!) just know that the one thing about my press is that it's waaay too big. We made 4 gallons of cider, and only filled the press with about 2 inches of apple pulp.
With regard to fermenting, it's not too hard of a process, so I'm thinking ours just got contaminated at some point. Make sure to keep everything very clean as you go. Wash airlocks, tubes, jugs, etc.
The other thing is take good notes. We tried various sweeteners for example, and had the whole thing ended up more palatable, it would have been cool to compare the sugar, to the honey, to the brown sugar.
Good luck! I'd love to hear how yours turns out.
Regards,
Oren

justin

8/26/2013 02:58:45 pm

If you boil the cider it won't ferment. You can only ferment non pasturised cider.

Paul link

9/3/2013 07:32:19 am

Hi,

This is a clarification regarding fermentation and pasteurization.

Fermentation can be obtained after pasteurization by the addition of yeast. In fact this is the normal procedure. By pasteurizing brewers and vintners are able to destroy the naturally occurring yeasts. By adding wine maker's yeast you get a consistent product.

Good Luck

HOMEMADE CIDER PRESS

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