How to Make Apartment-Scale Hard Cider

Our intrepid Food in Jars contributor Alex Jones is back again. This time, she’s telling the tale of her journey to becoming a home hard cider maker. You small batch home brewers are going to love this one! -Marisa

My first flirtation with home brewing happened back in 2010, before my penchant for collecting food-related hobbies and weird old stuff outgrew my life and space.

I was living with six friends in a big renovated West Philadelphia Victorian, complete with servants’ staircase coming up from the kitchen, a substantial back deck, and a south-facing backyard where I made my first attempts at raised bed gardening.

That winter, my job was managing the CSA program at Greensgrow Farms, a longtime local food oasis in Philadelphia’s Kensington neighborhood, and we often had a few crates of leftover local apples that I could buy at cost.

So when I saw a vintage wooden cider press for sale on Craigslist, I jumped at the chance to haul that huge, heavy thing home, got some apples from work, and made my first batch—after a snowstorm, it looks like. (I’m the one in the green boots.)

Since I only used one kind of apple, and a sweet one at that, the cider had an uninteresting, ricelike flavor, almost like a mild, fruity sake. Soon, our little collective house dissolved, and having nowhere to store the ungainly cider press, I passed it along to another urbanite with a love of DIY projects who had more space.

Now, with a small apartment and an already-full preserving schedule and pantry for most of the year, I thought my cider-making days were long gone. But when I was recently given a gift card to Philly Homebrew Outlet, my neighborhood supplier of all things fermentation, I found myself back in the game. (Philly-area readers can visit PHO locations in Southwest Philly and Kensington; others can shop online.)

I picked up this adorably compact cider-making kit, which contains instructions and all the supplies you need but the starter juice and yeast, which I selected with the advice of a helpful staffer. (Cider and mead are good options for the small-space homebrewer, since the fermentation vessel doesn’t need to have as much extra air space as it does for beer.)

For the starter juice, I picked up a gallon of Eden Garden Farm’s excellent fresh apple cider, made at the Bermudian Springs Cider Mill in Dillsburg, PA. It’s UV pasteurized, which helps to preserve the bright, sweet-tart flavor of farmer Lem’s specially selected blend of half a dozen apple varieties.

Using a fresh-pressed cider whose sweet-tart taste you love should yield a well-balanced end product. But any fresh or pasteurized cider or juice will work as long as it doesn’t contain preservatives like sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate. If you do want to select and press or juice your own apples, be sure to use a mix of sweet and tart varieties to get the best flavor.

Before you begin your mini-batch, you’ll want to decide if you’d like to add sugar to the recipe. Additional sugars like honey (which I used), white or brown sugar, or dextrose will boost the alcohol content of the finished product, so be sure to check the alcohol tolerance of the yeast you’re using and calculate how much sugar to add based on that range. Otherwise, a too-boozy brew could kill the yeast and halt fermentation before the full process is completed.

When you’re ready to make your cider, sanitize any equipment that will come into contact with the mixture using a bleach water solution. Add your optional additional sugars, dissolved in a little cider, to the two-gallon bucket that comes with the kit. Dissolve the pectic enzyme, which will make your finished product clear, in a little cider and add that to the bucket.

Next, add the full gallon of cider, sprinkle on the yeast, close up the bucket, pop on the airlock, and stash in a cool, dark place for at least a week and up to three. Calculating how much yeast to add wasn’t something I had discussed with my homebrew guru and online research was inconclusive, so I played it safe and added half the packet. This is something I want to learn more about before I brew my next batch.

That’s primary fermentation. Secondary fermentation is where the fun (and plastic tubing) begins.

Once again, sanitize all vessels, utensils, and other equipment that will come into contact with the cider. You’ll be transferring the cider from the two-gallon bucket into the one-gallon jug. My apartment-size movable dishwasher was the perfect height to be the siphoning surface once I propped up the jug with an apple crate.

Your siphon and tubing, also included in the kit, are the perfect tools to get the cider from vessel A to vessel B without disturbing the yeasts that have settled at the bottom of the bucket, which we want to leave behind.

To move the cider, you’ll pump the auto-siphon, which will move cider from the first vessel to the second one below. It can be a little tricky to do at first without spilling cider all over yourself or the floor; PHO recommends practicing with sanitizer until you get the hang of it. The goal here is to make sure that the tube end stays in the jug and the siphon end doesn’t stir up the yeast at the bottom of the bucket.

Once the cider (minus the sediment) has been siphoned, replace the airlock and stash your jug in a cool, dark place for anywhere from two weeks to up to a month.

After that, you’ll have drinkable, boozy cider—huzzah!

I ended up with two liter bottles and one quart bottle, about ¾ gallon yield after starting with one gallon of fresh cider.

You can stop here and keep your cider still—simply siphon into any bottle with a tight-fitting lid (a growler is great for this, but wine bottles work too) and store in the refrigerator.

At this stage, mine was very light-tasting, slightly sweet and slightly tart. It left the slightest hint of fizz on the tongue and smelled, improbably, of jasmine—a far cry from the unappealing result of my first effort years ago. I’d hoped for something a little drier, with bigger flavors, but I’m pretty pleased with this initial result.

To add carbonation to your hard cider, you’ll need to take one more step and wait a few more weeks. (I’m still in this waiting stage as I write this—but I’ll be back in a few days with an update on my sparkling cider results.)

Additional carbonation requires a little more sugar; a bottle priming calculator can help you determine how much sugar to add based on the volumes of carbon dioxide typical for the style of beer or cider you’re making and the amount of cider you’re working with.

Rather than siphoning from the jug directly into bottles, as you would with still cider, dissolve the amount of sugar you need in a little water and add to your sanitized brewing bucket. Siphon the cider (minus any sediment at the bottom of the jug, of course) into the bucket.

Then, siphon the cider-sugar mixture into sanitized bottles appropriate for carbonation. (PHO’s kit recommends doing this with the siphon; I admit I simply poured my still cider, pretty sediment-free and mixed with sugar, through a sanitized funnel into the bottles.) You can use swing-top bottles, cappable beer bottles, or plastic soda bottles to carbonate. Be sure to leave one inch of headspace between the top of the liquid and the bottle stopper.

When using glass bottles, I like to play it safe and keep them in a plastic cooler with a tight-fitting lid in case of any freak explosions while this last stage of fermentation is taking place. Let your bottles carbonate for two weeks at room temperature, then chill and enjoy.

There you have it—a way to make your own cider that won’t take up more room in your kitchen than, say, your food processor or crock pot.

Have you tried making your own hard cider before? What about other small-scale boozy projects? How did it go? Share your hopes, fears, and experiences in the comments!

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How to Make Apartment-Scale Hard Cider (adapted from Philly Homebrew Outlet)

Author: Alex Jones

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Ingredients

• 1 gallon of fresh-pressed or store-bought juice no preservatives like sodium benzoate or potassium sorbate
• Yeast I used about half of a 9g packet of Mangrove Jack's M02, specifically for cider making; your friendly homebrew supplier can help you choose a good strain
• 1/2 teaspoon pectic enzyme
• 6 ounces wildflower honey or 4.4 ounces white or brown sugar by weight; this quantity of additional sugar should boost the booziness by about 2% ABV to around 6%-8%
• Optional: 12 grams white sugar for carbonation step

Special equipment (all included in the Philly Homebrew Outlet 1 Gallon Cider Making Kit):

• Two-gallon food-grade plastic bucket with lid and hole for airlock
• One-gallon glass jug
• Jug stopper with hole for airlock
• Airlock
• Auto-siphon and plastic tubing for racking
• Growlers or wine bottles with corks for still cider
• Swing-top bottles cappable beer bottles, or PET soda bottles with caps (for sparkling cider)

Instructions

Primary Fermentation

• Make sanitizer solution by mixing bleach and cool water at a ratio of 1 tablespoon bleach to 1 gallon water. Sanitize all equipment that will come into contact with your cider by letting it sit in the sanitizer solution for two minutes, then wipe with a clean towel or air dry.
• If adding sugars, heat a small amount of cider in a sanitized vessel and dissolve the sugar. Add to the two-gallon bucket.
• Dissolve the pectic enzyme in a small amound of cider and add to the bucket, then add the remaining cider.
• Once the temperature of the cider in the bucket is below 75 degrees F, sprinkle on the yeast. Close the lid, fill the airlock to the line with water, and insert the airlock snugly in the hole in the lid.
• Allow cider to ferment at room temperature for one to three weeks.

Secondary Fermentation

• Move the bucket of cider to an elevated location, like a tabletop or counter, 48 hours before you plan to rack so that any sediment disturbed in the process has time to settle before racking.
• When you're ready to rack, sanitize all equipment that will come in contact with the cider. Run hot water over one end of the plastic tubing until it's pliable enough to fit over the short end of the racking cane. Attach the long end of the racking cane to the auto siphon and practice siphoning using sanitizer until you feel confident moving liquid with the siphon.
• Place the gallon jug lower than the bucket (on the floor or, if that's too low, on a stable chair, stool, apple crate, etc.) so the liquid will siphon efficiently. Put the plastic tubing end of the siphon into the jug, ensuring that you won't pull it out of the jug when pumping the siphon. Place the siphon end halfway into the bucket of cider, taking care not to disturb or suck up the sediment at the bottom of the bucket. Pump the siphon a few times to start the action, carefully lowering the siphon into the bottom of the bucket as the liquid level drops, taking care not to disturb or agitate the sediment while doing so.
• Once siphoning is completed, place the stopper and the airlock (filled with water to the line) onto the jug and allow to ferment at room temperature for another two to four weeks.

Bottling

• To make still cider, sanitize siphoning equipment, bottles, and caps. Move the jug to an elevated surface, then siphon as described above into growlers or wine bottles, taking care to pinch off the siphon when the liquid level in the bottle is 1 inch away from the stopper. Cap and store in the refrigerator; plan to drink any bottles that are not full first, as additional headspace in the bottle will cause the cider to oxidize quickly.
• To make sparkling cider, sanitize bucket, siphoning equipment, bottles, and all other equipment that will come into contact with the cider.
• Calculate how much additional sugar to add based on the volume of cider you're brewing. Aim for approximately 2.5 volumes of carbon dioxide. In this recipe, I used 12 grams of white sugar. Dissolve this amount of sugar in a small amount of water and add to the bucket.
• Siphon the cider from the jug into the bucket to allow the sugar to mix with the cider.
• Elevate the bucket with the cider and additional sugar and place the tube end of the siphon into a sanitized bottle below. Place the siphon into the elevated bucket and start the siphon. Keep a close eye on the liquid level in the bottle and pinch the tube to stop the flow of cider when the level is one inch below where the bottle stopper will be.
• Remove the siphon tube, keeping it pinched shut, and insert into the next bottle. Repeat this process until bottles are filled with one inch of headspace.
• Cap your bottles and store in a cooler (to contain any popped bottles) at room temperature for two more weeks to carbonate.
• If any have more than one inch of headspace, chill and drink those now or refrigerate so that oxidation from too much headspace doesn't damage the cider.

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