To Make Good Cider
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the apples
Hand-pick perfectly ripe apples, avoiding any that are bruised or rotten.
Wipe the apples dry before grinding them.
Use hair cloths between layers of pummage instead of straw.
Press and settle
Press the apples and let the juice pass through a hair sieve into a large vessel.
When white bubbles appear, draw off the liquor using a spigot, leaving the lees behind.
Cask and rack
Transfer the cider into clean, sweet casks and monitor closely.
When bubbles rise to the bunghole, rack the cider again.
Fill the cask with similar cider and seal tightly, optionally adding a tumbler of sweet oil.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Apples
- Provide the juice and sugars that ferment into the cider's body and flavour.
- Hair cloths
- Hold the pummage layers apart so the pressed juice can drain cleanly.
- Sweet oil
- Optionally added to the cask as a finishing addition to the cider.
The step that matters
Drawing off the liquor after white bubbles appear. Fermentation is starting at this point. Drawing off the clear liquor with a spigot leaves the lees, the settled solids, behind, so the cider stays clearer and less likely to turn sour or cloudy.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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