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There's an abundance of apples this time of year (admittedly getting thinner now), and I would like to try a decent hard cider, but in the past I've had serious troubles with

  • Cloudy results
  • Odd flavors
  • Muted cider tastes

Note that I've generally attempted to pretend that I'm still following the ale tradition, perhaps this is part of the problem.

Herb
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2 Answers2

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Hygiene Hygiene Hygiene.

Champagne yeast works well with apples.

Pasteurize of the juice. There's a lot of nasties in natural fruit that will spoil the batch. Purists will probably tell you not to pasteurize, but I feel it's a necessary step.

EDIT: This link says to pasteurize between 185 (85) to 200 (93) degrees. So the 165 degrees mentioned in the comment is probably not sufficient.

http://mars.ark.com/~squeeze/7D-cider.html

Chris Cudmore
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  • Can you still treat champagne yeast as though it were an ale (warm, top fermenting), or is cooling required? And do you have specifics on pasteurization (time & temperature)? It's possible that I haven't used sufficient temperature (~160 degrees for 10 minutes). – Herb Nov 08 '10 at 21:47
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Look into Keeving. A brewer at my local club made an excellent, bright, crisp cider using this method. It may seem complicated but it's really quite simple (providing you can get hold of the PME enzyme it's just a matter of letting fermentation happen naturally and having patience).

Read this link for details:

http://www.cider.org.uk/keeving.html

Simon
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