pie bird | vents while baking ~ ~ ~: Homemade Hard Cider, Take II

First Day of Fermentation

I can't wait! Our homemade hard apple cider is ready for drinking today! It's been an interesting experiment and we've learned some things for the next batch. In the first cider post, we ordered our glass jugs (carboys) and found some great online resources. Today I want to play a little catch-up and fill you in on how incredily easy the rest of the project has been!

The airlock in a stopper

After a little research, I decided to go with a standard yeast - NOT a champagne yeast since I'd read several places that it makes the cider too dry and not sweet enough. I ordered a couple of packets of SAF Ale S-04 Yeast from The Home Brewery along with the rubber stoppers and airlocks I needed for our jugs (more explanation here in a minute). The yeast can cost from $1-$4 depending on the type, and the airlocks and stoppers shouldn't run more than a dollar or two a piece.

The final step before the fermenting begins is finding a juice that will make a hard cider. It can be more difficult than you think to find a juice these days with no preservatives, so you can imagine my total shock when I found some in our little grocery store!


Cloudiness from Fermentation

After pouring the juice into our jug, we added the proportional amount of yeast needed for a gallon- check your yeast packet, it will let you know how much a whole packet is for and adjust accordingly. After plugging it with the stopper and adding a little water to the airlock (which deals with all the gases coming out of the yeasty juice and will keep the bacteria in the air away from fermenting liquid), we were making cider! It doesn't take long to see a lot of action. Bubbles, bubbles, bubbles!

We let it do its thing for 7 days before transferring to plastic bottles. After a couple of days recharging in the bottles (the plastic should become hard with the gas), we stuck the bottles in the fridge. Tonight we are going to taste the results - fingers crossed!