Hard Cider/ Wine Making

Thank you all for adding to the post and providing me with some information. Someone asked for an easy recipe..... I don't know how much easier it gets than the one that was passed on to me.

I have an Orchard the next town over that presses apple cider. I leave them my phone number and make arraignments with them to draw off a barrel for me when it's at it's best. I make sure I tell them I'm making hard cider and I need to get un-pasturized cider.

I get a wooden whiskey barrel full to make my cider, and base my mix on 50 gallons, so you can take the time to divide it out for smaller batches.

50 Gallons of Cider
25 Lbs Plain old Sugar
4 Lbs Raisins
Some clear plastic tubing (5 Feet or so of 3/8 dia)
an extra bung for the barrel
2 pairs of pantyhose

Take the extra bung and drill a hole in it a little smaller than the plastic tubing, so once to force the tubing into the bung, it will be a pretty tight fit.

I take the barrel when I get it home and put it on my stand. (With the help of the tractor, loader, and a lifting strap.) I clean two 5 gallon buckets to where I would drink from them.

I siphon one bucket from the barrel to make room for the sugar ect. and set it aside. Then I siphon off another 5 gallon bucket about 3/4 full and add sugar to it. Stirring it to dissolve the sugar. Once I get 5 lbs or so dissolved, I pour the mix back into the barrel and siphon out another bucket. I keep doing this until I get all the sugar dissolved.

I then add 1 pound of raisens the each stocking of the pantyhose. Tie the stockings off to something that won't fit through the hole in the barrell but leave them as long as you can. Wooden spoon or something. I use my hand and form the raisens in the pantyhose into a long skinny tube type thing and work each stocking filled with raisins into the barrell. Don't let the entire stocking fall inside, this is why you tied something to the end of it.

Then take that extra bucket of cider you siphoned off at the start and fill the barrel back up until you can stick your finger inside and touch the cider.

Then I place the tubing in the bung I drilled for it. Make sure it's in tight, and ends up no more than flush with the back side of the bung, or your cider will siphon out on you. I lay out the pantyhose that are hanging out, around the opening so they are as even as I can get them and tap the bung into the opening to seal it off.

Take a little bit of left over cider and fill up a quart glass bottle 3/4 full or so. Take the end of the tubing that's not in the bung, and put it inside the bottle. Make sure it stays below the surface of the cider inside the bottle. This is the airtrap. Wire the bottle to the stand or something to make sure it doesn't fall over or something and let it start to work.

In a day or two, the hose in the bottle will start to bubble. That tells you it's starting to work. Leave it undisturbed until it stops bubbling.

That's the recipe I was given from the Old Timer that passed it on to me, but in my opinion, my cider is best just before it stops bubbling, that's why I asked how to make it stop so I can bottle it then.

Remove the bung, gently and carefuly remove the pantyhose with the raisins inside, and discard them. Take extra care not to tear the stockings while pulling them through the hole. Siphon off the liquid into bottles, being ever so careful not to stir up the sediment on the bottom of the barrel, and keeping the siphon up off of the bottom for the same reason.

I leave 4 or 5 gallons inside the barrel and put the bung without the hole in the opening to keep it fresh until the next year. The next year, I just rinse out the barrel the best I can, and bring it back to the Orchard around the first of October.

I generally get my cider a week or two before Halloween, and it's usually it's best right around Christmas to share with friends. My recipe uses natural yeast and doesn't call for me to add any. I'm not sure about the difference, but this is what I use for a recipe and it has never let me down taste wise. I have had a few bottles explode on me, but hopefully when I add the stuff to stop it from working, I will no longer have this problem.

Drink this with caution, I have had many friends have to call their wives for a ride home after sitting around shooting the breeze and drinking my cider in the winter time.

Jay

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Single male, 41 Lt. brown hair, brown eyes, 5'9" 210#, living in CT. Nobody I date seems to be interested in the farm thing. Is Ms Right out there? Oh yea, that's my Nephew in the picture with me.

Jay,

Thanks for the great recipe. Now if I can just find a tractor with a loader . . .

Bruce

LMAO Maybe some strong friends that like to drink?

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Single male, 41 Lt. brown hair, brown eyes, 5'9" 210#, living in CT. Nobody I date seems to be interested in the farm thing. Is Ms Right out there? Oh yea, that's my Nephew in the picture with me.

Are you talking before the fermentation is finished or afterward?
You said wine - so that would be after the fermentation is finished as before it would just be juice.

Actually, what I want to do is stop it just as it's finishing or right when it does. I have left it in the barrel and taken what I need when I need it, but it changes and gets kind of nasty over time. I have also tried to bottle it just as soon as it's done, but I get bottles exploding. I'm looking to get my cider to just where I think it tastes best, and then give it something to stop it right there so I can bottle it and not get exploding bottles.

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Single male, 41 Lt. brown hair, brown eyes, 5'9" 210#, living in CT. Nobody I date seems to be interested in the farm thing. Is Ms Right out there? Oh yea, that's my Nephew in the picture with me.

Jay,
a friend of mine has been experimenting with making meads at my house and i have some thoughts.
the naturally occuring yeasts that make ferment sugar to alcohol are anaerobic. they create CO2 in the barrel and it pushes out all of the oxygen through the tube. no air goes in through the tube because it's submerged in the jar of cider. At some point, the concentration of alcohol is high enough that the yeast dies and the whole process stops.
When the barrel is opened, then air is introduced and aerobic bacteria can now survive in there. One of those bacteria is the bacteria that converts alcohol to acetic acid (vinegar).
I'm thinking that you could pour the hard cider into mason jars before the fermenting is complete. The introduced air would be forced out by the CO2 produced. The anaerobic condition in the jar would prevent it turning to vinegar. (When I use mason jars in a boiling water bath, I see the contents boiling inside and the steam escapes from under the lid.) I'm not saying you should process the jars in boiling water, i'm just thinking the mason jars would allow the CO2 to escape without the exploding bottle problem.

I HAVE NO IDEA IF WHAT I'M SAYING WILL WORK. I just think it will work. Maybe allow some cider to ferment in a few jars in a safe place to see what happens. The resultant drink would also be slightly carbonated, I'm thinking.

Another possibility would be to pasteurize the mason jars full of hard cider to kill everything alive in there. Pasteurizing vinegar requires bringing it to a temp of 140 to 160.
The following link has info about it:
http://ohioline.osu.edu/hyg-fact/5000/5346.html

That's what I do. I siphon the cider right into mason jars...then the jars are pasteurized. No broken jars and no problems whatsoever with the cider.

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When thou walkest through the fire, thou shalt not be burned; neither shall the flame kindle upon thee ~ Isaiah 43:2

Ok, I have a couple questions, and then I'll feel like I have it down I hope....... I think I misunderstood what was happening when my bottles blew up. I do wait until the bubbles stop and the yeast dies, I assume this is when the cider is done. Then I draw it off into bottles and cap them tight for storage, or just siphon out of the barrel as needed. I'm thinking what I have going on is not fermentation converting sugar to alcohol, but being I have opened the barrel and let outside air in, I bet I'm getting the refermentation of the alcohol turning into vinegar and that's why I loose the taste. Will the addition of the Potassium Sorbate at the time of bottling and drawing off stop this? If I wait until the alcohol kills off the yeast, do I still need to add the Campden or Potassium Metabisulphate? Or is the Potassium Sorbate enough to preserve my cider through out the year?

Jay

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Single male, 41 Lt. brown hair, brown eyes, 5'9" 210#, living in CT. Nobody I date seems to be interested in the farm thing. Is Ms Right out there? Oh yea, that's my Nephew in the picture with me.

cider recipe link
i found this thought it could help someone.

i assume by " cider" they mean store bought cider. i assume fresh squeezed juice would be the same.

When I was stationed in England, there was an orchard you could go to and drink fresh hard cider. They still had the floaties in it, and they say the floaties were more potent than the drink.

Do you have to our off the clear on something like cider? wouldn't the sediment be quite tasty? I haven't tried making cider yet, however it is on the wishlist.