First batch · 23.0 litres · Dry cider
Dry farmhouse cider
Apple juice and yeast, and almost nothing else. Simple to make and hard to make well, because there is nowhere to hide and the apples decide most of the outcome.
Starting sugar
11.0 Brix
2.64 kg of fermentable sugar
Original gravity
1.044
from the ingredients, not asserted
Finishing gravity
0.995
dry
Alcohol
6.5%
Brix alone predicts 6.0 to 6.6%
Residual sugar
0 g/L
approximate, from gravity
Ready after
3 months
best around 2 years
Made to Dry cider, and every computed figure lands inside the published range for it.
ABV inTA inpH inRS inWhat decides this wine
The blend. A cider from one variety of supermarket apple is thin and one-dimensional; the traditional answer is roughly two parts sharp, one part sweet and one part bittersweet, and adding tannin is the shortcut when you cannot get the third of those.
What goes in
| Ingredient | Weight | Sugar | Volume | Share of sugar |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apple juice About 23 litres. Check the label: anything preserved with potassium sorbate will not ferment at all. | 24.00 kg | 2.64 kg | 23.04 L | 100% |
| Wine tannin Eating apples have sugar and acid but no tannin, and a cider without tannin is apple wine. Skip this only if you are pressing bittersweet varieties. | 5 g | - | - | 0% |
| Yeast nutrient | 10 g | - | - | 0% |
The ingredients contribute 23.0 litres and the water makes up the rest to 23 litres. Those figures are checked against each other when the site is built, because a recipe whose volumes do not add up produces a wine weaker or stronger than every number above.
Acid and sulphite
Acidity of the must
5.5 g/L
at pH 3.50
No malolactic
5.5 g/L
the acidity you measure is the acidity you keep
Potassium bicarbonate
13 g
to reach 5.0 g/L. Bench trial before treating the batch
Sulphite at bottling
1.1 g
potassium metabisulphite, for 28 mg/L free SO2 at pH 3.55
The batch
- Must volume
- 23 L
- Ferment at
- 16-20 C
- Molecular SO2 target
- 0.5 mg/L
- Malolactic
- No
- Yeast
- English Cider Yeastto 12%, low N
The sulphite figure is worked out against the pH of the finished wine, not of the must. Malolactic and deacidification both raise pH, and dosing a finished red to its must pH under-protects it by roughly a third. Recompute for your own reading.
Method
- 01Sulphite the juice at 50 mg/L and leave it 24 hours before pitching.
- 02Add nutrient and tannin, and pitch a cider strain rather than a wine yeast: a wine yeast strips the apple aroma.
- 03Ferment at 16 to 20C, which is cool and slow and gives a far better cider than a warm fast one.
- 04Rack at dryness, sulphite, and leave it in bulk over the winter.
- 05Bottle still, or prime at 5 g/L for a light sparkle in bottles rated for it.
The two instruments this recipe needs
Every number on this page came from a hydrometer reading and a pH reading. Without those two you are following a recipe rather than making a wine, and the sulphite figure in particular is meaningless without a pH you have actually measured.
Measuring
Hydrometer and trial jar
SOLIGT Triple Scale Hydrometer and Glass Test Jar for Wine, Beer, Mead & Cider - ABV, Brix and Gravity Test Kit
$18.98
Tracks the ferment from must to dry. The gap between your starting and finishing gravity is the only reliable way to know the alcohol you actually made.
Measuring
pH meter
Apera Instruments AI1113 pH Calibration Buffer Solution Kit (7.00, 4.00), 8 oz. Each
$18.00
The most important instrument on this page. pH decides how much of your sulphite is actually protecting the wine, and dosing without knowing it is guesswork.