This is the stage when any fruit juices - blood orange juice, pineapple juice, etc. Most hard ciders are filtered however, some cideries like Downeast Cider House in Boston brew unfiltered cider, which contains yeast, resulting in a cloudier product that tastes, well, yeastier.Īt Austin Eastciders, they produce pure hard apple cider, as well as blended fruit cider.
Generally, between two to four weeks is a normal fermentation time.Īfter the apples have fermented, the cider may be passed through a micron filter to remove the yeast, which creates a clarified, crisp cider. "The higher the sugar content, the longer it will take to ferment," explains Brittnay Perlo, Master Cidermaker at Austin Eastciders. The yeast will convert all of the sugars in the juice to ethanol (aka alcohol) and after about two weeks, the cider is ready. All you need is two ingredients: apple juice, which are added to a tank or barrel (these could be made from stainless steel, polymer, or even old wine or rum oak barrels). It's not nearly as saturated of a market as craft beer is, but there is still plenty to learn and lots of varieties to sip.Īt a very high level, cider-making is a rather uncomplicated process. Or maybe you're excited, but just have no idea where to begin. If you've never tried hard cider before, maybe you're skeptical. Now, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of cideries producing warm and spiced, fruity, funky hard ciders for consumption from the Finger Lakes of New York to the Pacific Northwest. Five years ago, you could count on one hand the number of hard ciders available nationwide, and most of them were quite sweet. Cider is naturally gluten-free, so a lot of people are able to consume it, which is a big reason why it has become so popular.
While the craft beer craze and consumption of spiked seltzers and canned cocktails are at an all-time high, so is hard cider. Now that the leaves are changing and we're eating apple cider donuts every hour on the hour, it seems hard to remember a time when hard apple cider wasn't also part of our autumn menu.
Hard apple cider full#
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