Craft Hard Cider: Recipes, Tips, and Ideas for Making & Enjoying Hard Cider
I broke down the equipment used to make hard cider into the following three basic process steps. Fermentation Equipment Aging Equipment Bottling Equipment In this post, I’ll cover the Aging step. You can find PDF files of each step in The Shop. As I did with my other posts, I am taking the view of … Continue reading Cider Equipment: Aging
Is there an ideal amount of time to age cider? Ultimately, there is no one single right answer to the question of how long you should age cider. That is because it depends on the cider and the conditions under which it will age. The maturation or aging of cider, like wine, will allow it … Continue reading Cider Question: How long should you age cider?
Cider or what some call hard cider is normally dry, which means it has little to no sugar remaining. This is because apple juice has about half the sugar that grape juice has and is often made with yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) used for wine. The result is that when fermentation completes, you are likely to … Continue reading Cider Question: How to make sweet hard cider?
The simple answer is “no”. Campden, potassium metabisulfite, sulfite, sulphite, or whatever name or compound you use, it is not needed. This is especially true if you are unsure why you are adding it. As a general rule, if you don’t understand why you are adding something to your cider, don’t add it. This is … Continue reading Cider Question: Do I need to use Campden (sulfite)?
Racking your hard cider simply means to siphon off the cider leaving the bottom layer of sediment behind. To answer the question of when you should rack your cider, I first need to review the definition of sediment and lees. Apple juice contains a variety of organisms and compounds. Many of these precipitate or drop … Continue reading Cider Question: When should I rack my cider?
Malolactic Fermentation or what is often referred to simply as MLF, is the process where lactic acid bacteria converts malic acid to lactic acid. For cider makers, MLF can be a very important process because apples are high in malic acid. As a result, MLF can reduce the acidity found in hard cider made from … Continue reading Malolactic Fermentation and Citric Acid
Malolactic fermentation (MLF) is a process that usually occurs after primary or alcoholic fermentation completes. Fundamentally, it’s the conversion of malic acid to lactic acid. Malic acid is more acidic compared to lactic acid so MLF reduces the acidity of your cider. Other reactions that impact aroma also occur. Diacetyl creation is one of the … Continue reading Cider Question: How can I encourage Malolactic Fermentation (MLF)?
Cider Aroma Faults: Butter Sometimes too much of a compound is the cause of a fault. Other times, the definition of whether its a fault depends on the beverage. Diacetyl (C4H6O2) is an example of such a compound. In most beers, it’s considered a fault but, in most California chardonnays, it’s desired. Butter is the … Continue reading Aroma Faults: Diacetyl
Maturation: The time needed to make a cider ready to drink. Maturation is defined as the time it takes cider or wine to become ready to drink. I like to broaden that definition to mean the time a cider is stored without preservatives after primary fermentation finishes. I also often call this aging. You can … Continue reading Cider Words: Maturation
When someone says bacteria, we generally have a negative reaction. Bacteria is a bad thing, right? We want to kill it to keep us from getting sick. However, not all bacteria is bad and especially when you are fermenting hard cider. Lactic Acid Bacteria, commonly called LAB, is the under-appreciated and often abused element in … Continue reading Bacteria and Hard Cider – It’s not all bad.
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