My wife and I bought 20 acres of rural land a few years ago and on it was a small orchard consisting of 6 mature apple trees. The first year she made many apple pies and a lot of applesauce with the bounty. Last years offering was pretty small, but this years crop was a bumper one! What does someone who has a hobby fermenting things do with it all? Make hard cider!

From our first pressing, I gathered 5 gallons of must (I guess it’s called that too, like wine) from what my phone identification apps call Early Harvest, or Paradise apples. The flavor is a very balanced profile between tart and sweet, tasting like a really good natural apple juice. I also ordered some yeast (SafCider AB-1) and some yeast nutrients. I figured I’d keep this first batch really simple and easy, though I did learn a lot while I was waiting for the first batch to ferment and made subsequent additions to the next batch (upcoming posts).

The original gravity of the raw apple juice was only at 1.040, a bit low for what I want to hit around ABV (around 5.5-6%) so I boiled up 1.5 lbs of light DME (dry malt extract), added that to the juice, which bumped up the O.G. to 1.052, and pitched the yeast (dry) with the nutrients and let’er rip.

In less than 24 hours the cider was going like a madhouse. If the lid to the fermenter had been shaped differently, I would have needed a blow off tube, which was a little surprising. I guess I’ll know t keep one on hand in the future, just in case.

Now to let it ferment.