Name: Artificial Cider
Ingredients: 1 gallon cold water; 1 lb brown sugar; ½ oz tartaric acid; 3 tablespoons yeast

Artificial Cider

Ingredients

1 gallon cold water
1 lb brown sugar
½ oz tartaric acid
3 tablespoons yeast

Directions

Mix the batch

Combine cold water, brown sugar, tartaric acid, and yeast in a container, then shake well to mix the ingredients.
Make it in the evening to use the next day.

Scale up and keep going

Use a keg for larger batches and save a few quarts for the next batch.
Do not add more yeast until rinsing the keg.
If it gets sour, add more ingredients to improve the flavor.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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

Brown sugar: Provides sweetness and the sugar the yeast ferments into alcohol and carbon dioxide.
Yeast: Ferments the sugar, producing alcohol and carbon dioxide that give the drink its character and fizz.
Tartaric acid: Adds acidity, giving the drink its tart, cider-like bite.

“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.