Quick hard cider recipe
Do you ever have the problem of running out of wine or other alcoholic beverages at large religious festivals? Are you tired of the constant buying of wine at high prices? There is one fool-proof hard cider recipe that anyone can make in one month. One time I bought a hard cider brewing kit, made it and it tasted ok but was too dry for me. I went to a meeting at a brewing club and was told that the simplest way to make hard cider was to take a 5 gallon carboy (large glass bottle the kind that used to be used for water years ago) fill it with apple cider, pitch, or put in two packets of wine yeast (do not use bread yeast otherwise it will taste very bad) and let it sit for a month.
To make this hard cider a few things must be in order to ensure the batch does not turn out bad. First, sterlyize the bottle either with iodine or with one cap bleach mixed with water, then rinse very well. Pour in the apple cider, freash squeezed not from store. (You can get this from any apple orchard and have them pour it in for you). With the cider in the jug put in the two packets of wine yeast. Shaking is not necessary. You'll need a blowoff tube. The blowoff tube is simply a clear plastic tube about the diameter of a cigar. Take the blowoff tube and stick it into a cork with a hole in it just large enough to squeeze the tube into. Put the cork in the hole of the bottle and the other end of the tube in a bucket of clean water. The reason for this is to allow the air created from the yeast to escape without letting air into the carboy, which would spoil the batch making it very sour. The carboy should be kept in a cool dark place but not the refrigerator. I doubt it would even fit there anyways. A closet is a good place.
You should check on it every day or so as sometimes the cork pops off from the pressure. Let's say for instance that you put on the cork on but had no hole in it with the blow off tube sticking out of it, the cork would pop off and you'd have hard cider all over the walls, ceiling and floor and possible you from the cork blowing off. After the month is over siphone the nectar of the Gods into a clean carboy, large punchbowl or whatever you're going to use to hold it for the ritual. If you know something about bottling you can bottle it but that is a differant set of procedures. When siphoning the mixture out be sure not to disturb the carboy too much otherwise you'll stir the yeast (thick white layer on inside bottom of carboy) up which will cloud the cider and make it taste bad. One good way to siphon the mixture is to use a racking tube which is a hard clear plastic tube long enough to go to the bottom of the carboy but you want to get wta's above the thick white layer on the bottom.
1. Put cider in carboy
2. pitch yeast
3. put on cork & blow off tube
4. stick blowoff tube end in water
5. forget about it mostly for a month
6. after a month siphon it into another clean carboy
7. Do ritual and party hardy
This is a simple error-proof method of making hard cider. You can do the same thing with any fresh squeezed fruit juice. This mixture will be "alive" from the yeast as opposed to the dead wine you buy at the local liquor store. We are a people who revere life, shouldn't we be putting life into us?
