October 22, 2008

Here in Oregon, apple season is in full swing. One of the delights of the times is turning the apple bounty into gallons and gallons of delicious homemade sweet cider. And some folks are taking that a step further by pursuing the fine art of hard cider making.

THE BASIC STEPS INVOLVED IN MAKING SWEET CIDER ARE SIMPLE:

First of all, figure on 45 lbs of apples for 2 to 3 gallons of cider.

1. Begin with ripe, unbruised apples of several varieties. An experienced cider maker will have a formula for blending, and also goes by taste. Each of the apple varieties they use will contribute something to the finished cider, depending on if they are sweet, mildly to extremely tart, or aromatic. If you use only sweet varieties, the cider will lack depth. (NOTE: for a list of apple varieties and characteristics, go to the Mail Tribune website....)

Also, It’s important NOT to use apples that have fallen to the ground, because they can be contaminated.

2. At this point, experienced cider makers "sweat" the apples, meaning they store them in a clean, odor-free area for a week to ten days, to allow the apples to increase the sugar in the juice and encourage good flavor development. When a good firm squeeze leaves finger impressions in the fruit, they are ready for grinding. (Note: Some North American apple varieties do not benefit from this mellowing period, including Jonathan, Newtown, and Rome Beauty, which should be pressed when freshly picked)

3. Wash the apples to remove dust, chemicals, and stray bugs.

4. Grind the apples into a fine pulp, which is called the pomace. Unless you’re dealing with a very small batch - 20 pounds or so - you’ll need to rent (or purchase) a special piece of grinding equipment to accomplish this. Check your local newspaper for ads and local equipment rental stores. If you have a beer and wine making store in your community, they most likely are renting apple grinders and presses this time of year. Commercial-quality machinery will take the whole apple, but for small batches you can use a kitchen food processor or blender, as long as you quarter the unpeeled apples first.

5. The pomace is poured into the container of an apple press, a crank is turned, and cider begins to stream out below into a waiting tub.

6.You’ve now got a delicious batch of sweet cider. If this is your end point, then before drinking, the Oregon State University Extension office cautions that you will need to pasteurize the juice in order to kill any harmful bacteria that may be in it. Unpasteurized apple cider has been linked with illness caused by E.coli01157:H7 bacteria. So pasteurization is particularly important for specific high risk groups of people who are more vulnerable to food poisoning. That includes the elderly, very young, pregnant women, and those people with weakened immune systems.

To pasteurize, heat the juice to at least 160 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer, simply heat to just simmering (bubbles will just be appearing on the surface).

TURNING SWEET CIDER INTO HARD CIDER

To give you a general idea of how to go about fermenting sweet cider into hard cider, here’s a run-down of the process. These directions will NOT guide you through a batch of home made hard cider. But reading through them will give you an idea if it’s even the type of activity you want to undertake.

First, the equipment:

- Some sort of vessel to ferment the cider in. Barrels are traditional, but expensive. Other suitable containers include glass carboys, which hold around five gallons; or (for smaller batches) glass gallon jugs that were previously used for wine or fruit juice; or collapsible polyethylene containers (make sure they aren’t punctured), or rigid polyethylene containers.

- A hydrometer (sold as a wine maker’s or brewer’s hydrometer) to measure the sugar and other soluble solids in the liquid, as well as hydrometer scales to determine the sweetness of the apple juice, the amount of sugar in it, and the potential alcohol level.

- A "winemaker’s thermometer to check the air temperature during fermentation.

- Titration equipment, including a burette, acid test strips and pH papers, a direct reading acid tester.

- Fermentation locks, water seals, valves and air locks.

- A scale to measure the various additives, such as yeasts, nutrients, pectic enzymes, and sulfur dioxide.

- Filtering equipment, which can be as simple as a funnel and filter paper, or much more complex (read, expensive).

With equipment in hand, consider the following steps only a general introduction into the process for creating a dry, still hard cider, which is the most straightforward style to produce. (Highly recommended for first-timers.)

In a dry style hard cider, all of the sugars have been converted to alcohol, leaving very, very, (very!) little residual sugar in the finished cider. "Still" means that it will not be a sparkling, which is a more challenging style to produce.

After you’ve produced your sweet cider:

1. Remove a sample of juice (or all the juices if you kept your apple varieties separate). Blend the different varieties of juice to taste, and then test it for tannin content, and specific gravity.

2. Adding sulfur dioxide and let the juice stand for 24 hours.

3. Add yeast culture.

4. Leave the barrel or tank open until the foaming and frothing stage of primary fermentation slows down. This might take sevral weeks.

5. Fermentation. Once the primary fermentation is subsided, you’ll seal up the vessel and let the fermentation proceed until to the desired level of dryness.

6. Start measuring for dryness. You’ll begin taking specific gravity readings from time to time as fermentation slows. At dryness, you’ll test for acid.

COMBINE SEVERAL VARIETIES OF APPLES FOR THE BEST TASTING CIDER

When blending apples for a balanced flavor, some cider makers like to grind and press the different varieties separately and then blend them together in the end. Others like to just throw them altogether and let the juice become what it will. Whichever approach you choose, select varieties that fall into the four categories below for the best flavor:

Neutral - thirty to 60 percent of the juice should be from apples that are sweet and low-acid. Such varieties include Baldwin, Red Delicious, Rome Beauty, Winesap, Cortland, Ben Davis, and York Imperial.

Tart - Ten to 20 percent of the juice should be from apples that have medium-acid flavor. Such varieties include Jonathan, Cox’s Orange Pippin, Eospus Spitzenberg, Newtown, Northern Spy, Rhode Island Greening, Wealthy, and Winesap (I know! Some categorize Winesap as "neutral.")

Aromatic - Ten to 20 percent of the juice should be from apples with a lovely aromatic, "apply" flavor. Such varieties include Golden Russet, Gravenstein, Winter Banana, Cox’s Orange Pippin, and Wealthy.

Astringent - Five to 20 percent of the juice should be from apples with a relatively high level of tanin in flavor. These include Newtown, Lindel, and Red Astrakhan. Crab apples also are high in tannins, but go easy, as some are so high in tannin that they can overwhelm the juice.

CIDER-MAKING SOURCES:

"Cider, Making, Using and Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider," by Annie Proulx and Lew Nichols.

On the web: www.motherearthnews.com. In the "Most Popular" category, click on "Make your own hard cider."