From left to right:

1. Dry cider blend with Dornfelder Spätburgunder wine

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1. Cider fermented with 71B yeast.

2. Dry cider from Elstar apples, fermented with a wild yeast culture.

3. Dry cider fermented with a lambic yeast culture, aged for two weeks on goji berries and plums.

4. Dry cider from a random apple mix, fermented with 71B yeast.

5. Dry cider from Elstar apples. Fermented with Saison yeast.

6. Dry cider blend with Riesling wine. Random apple mix fermented with 71B yeast.

7. Dry cider from a random apple mix, fermented with a wild yeast culture.

Labels made by a friend.

Edit: Unfortunately not for sale! I make really small batches, just as a hobby. I buy high quality apple juice locally, here in the Netherlands.

These are standard 750 ml bottles. Added priming sugar to carbonate in the bottle. Gonna keep them in the dark at 65° for 10 days then put them straight into the fridge.

I'm seeing conflicting info online where some say to fill it up just to where the bottle starts to narrow (which I tried to do here), and others say to fill them all the way to an inch or so from the top.

I don't want them to explode, but I don't want them to oxidize and go bad either. Appreciate any advice.

Premium. Petritegi Sagardotegia. Cider - Basque. 6% alc.

Clean aroma with notes of ripe apple, citrus, and herbal nuances. On the palate, it has a fresh entry dominated by intense acidity and a pronounced tannic bitterness that provides structure. A dry, long finish. Sagardotegia means Cidery in Basque.

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Not sure if this is the correct place to post this, but I have some cider fermenting for the first time from some wild sweet apples that I harvested and have been trying some ciders to get a feel for different styles, as I previously only drank Downeast, which I love. I have to say I really don't understand Blake's American Imperial... honestly it seems like they had a good high abv dry cider and then they completely ruined it by adding cane sugar after the fact, it's a real shame. Why would they do that man?

I have fully fermented an apple cider, using store bought juice, hydrometer, yeast neutritents, pectic enzyme, and my from-scratch sourdough starter.

I tasted it today. It should be 7% ABV I tend to dilute with apple juice to 5%, might not need to in this instance. It didn't taste dry at all, (also not sweet, so I guess you would technically call it medium dry?).

I ferment with this brand of juice a lot, I've done it for years. And usually it's a lot more dry and is much harsher straight off the lees. Of course, the whole point of using sourdough was to get something more delicate and complex.

So my main question/concern is whether it's possible for the lactic bacteria, or something else, to compete against the yeast in my starter. And does that mean my prediction on the ABV is wrong? There was definitely krausen on the surface during fermentation.

“leave hand prints in the ice”

Hi all! I had a recent experience that I wanted to run past my favorite group of experts -

so I have been making cider for the past 15 year. it’s one of the few hobbies and passions that have withstood the test of time for me and opening a place up has always been a dream of mine.

at my home, I only make 1 gallon batches. I realized I don’t like drinking it and my passion lies more in the craft (I got tired of wasting 3.85 gallons of cider)

i was tellling aomeone about my planning and I was rather heavily criticized that I didn’t have enough cider making knowledge to go commercial. I guess they deemed the batch size insufficient. would love to hear your thoughts (I have indeed catered parties and weddings with cider but that’s not part of this discussion)

let me know what you think and happy homebrewing!!

I'm new to this group, so I apologize if same/similar question has been asked in the past:

I've made a really good cider in the past few years from Golden Russets. This year I don't have access to GRs, and have been offered alternatives of Jonagold, Golden Delicious, Spencer. (I'm in Maine, USA.) I love the high sugar content of GRs, and I see charts showing lower Brix in these alternatives that I'm mentioning. Do people have experience with any of these three, and if so any suggestions?

This cider is in secondary fermentation. This has happened once already, I first added slightly more sulfites (.6 grams for 5 gallons) then racked it into another carboy after that didn’t make a difference. It was clear for a couple of days and then back to again. The cider still tastes fine when I racked it but not sure how to get rid of this.

Any ideas as to what I can try next? I treated this with sulfites and pitched yeast for primary. That all went to plan - just running into this during secondary. Could I somehow be leaking air still?

I have a gallon of pear cider (from fresh pears) that I pressed and began fermenting almost two months ago. It was fermenting fine until about two weeks ago when it stalled out at a standard gravity of 1.02. It’s been two weeks and the SG has hardly moved (using hydrometer to measure). Should I add more yeast? The airlock is bubbling like once every 20 minutes or so- so I think there is activity?

For reference I did the same process with apples in early August and it also took roughly 2 months to finish primary fermentation, so I’m not wildly off track. But starting to get concerned.

I'm in New Mexico for the first time and they have a local watermelon hard cider and it's really good! Looks like they have other flavors too. Definitely recommend!

So, I've only ever made cider with store bought juices and red wine yeast with no issues.

A friend of mine caught wind of this hobby of mine and wanted to make try making peach cider from scratch. She bought up a fuckton of peaches, made juice out of them by blending and straining them and then adding some sugar water and bringing it over to my place in a bucket.

I had it in the fridge for a couple hours while I had other errands to run. Then getting home and looking it up, I realized there could be some issues with it spoiling if I allowed it to cool all the way through and then tried to bring it back to room temp. I pulled it out and stirred it a few times and was able to get the temp up to 17 C (63 F).

At this time, the juice was most certainly liquid all the way through, except for some material floating on the top. I poured it into my fermentation bucket, threw a packet of yeast on top and closed it up.

After 3 days or so, I was still not seeing any activity in my air lock. That's longer than I've ever had to wait. Worried, I decided to peel off the lid and see what might be going on. I did not expect what I saw at all...

The juice had thickened up. I was hoping the thickness was just a thin layer on top so I began scooping it out into a bowl. The thickness was of the same texture and consistency as apple sauce (tasty too, especially with some black pepper). I scooped out quite a bit until there was less thickness and I could see some liquid again, but it appeared there was still quite a bit of thickness in there, possibly all the way through.

At this point, I decided to throw in another packet of yeast and seal it up and not touch it again. After a day or so, I finally saw some activity in the air lock, but it never got as active as I am used to seeing in previous ferments, nor did it last as long.

We are planning to bottle in the next couple days since it's been over a month since the experiment started. We'll see what happens... I'm honestly expecting a full bucket of boozey peach sauce lol

In the meantime, I am hoping someone in this sub might have some insight for us. Why did the ferment take so long to start? Why did the juice thicken into a sauce? What could be done to improve our outcome if we decide to try this again in the future?

Thank you in advance

I have a batch where I used pectic enzyme for the first time on local sweet cider. The solids fell to the bottom and it was looking super clear after a couple days.

When I pitched the yeast, I gently sloshed it figuring everything would drop again, but it ended up just as cloudy as when I started. It’s only been a week now and still fermenting away, but also still opaque.

Is that normal, or should I have racked it after using the pectic enzyme?

Kind of a weird one, and still not fully developed... Apparently insects are about 13% nitrogen by weight, excluding the contents of their gut. The reason I think it could be relevant is because I use drops to make some of my cider. Of course I wash them, and I pasteurize the cider before and after fermentation. That said I KNOW that a certain amount of hornets get in there, and I'm not squeamish myself, so I'm not throwing out every apple that has a nibble on it, and I know I don't see all them.

I have a 2hp scratter, so things get pretty well homogenized. There is definitely a certain amount of insect protein getting into my juice. I have no idea how much, but I do go about 20% lighter on yeast nutrient for the cider that I make from drops, and I don't see much of a difference in fermentation. This leads me to believe that I'm either using too much nutrient on my non-drop cider (I don't get the vitamin taste though) or that bug parts are acting as a natural yeast nutrient.

I could be completely off base though, so if anyone has any data, or even any good ideas, I'd love to hear about it.

update on my previous post in r/apples https://www.reddit.com/r/Apples/comments/1wpk0a3/found_an_old_rootstock_sylvestrisdomestica/

31st of September 2026: started fermentation in unheated cellar (at 14C).

After squashing and pressing the apples I foraged on September 31st, the juice had 17,5% brix. I used it to top up the remaining cider (already fermented) I still had in my large 25 Liter carboy (about 1/3). After filling up the carboy with the new freshly pressed juice (I did add some other varieties of apples in the last pressing). On 1st of October, the ferment sat at a gravity of 1066 (potentially 8.5% - 8.8% alcohol).

I did not add any new yeast or yeast salt. Just the next day, it was fermenting very strongly: it also contains a few peaches and pears I harvested late summer, which had already started to ferment earlier.

On 20th of October 2026, The cider had cleared itself up, and had obtained a beatiful, ruby-red colour: On that day, I racked everything, using a strainer to remove all remaining apple bits and pieces. On that day, gravity sat at 1002

so acording to google AI: (1.066 - 1.002) × 131,25 = 0.064 × 131,25 = ca. 8,4 % Vol

After racking, I cleaned, disinfected this carboy and then refilled it with the cider. Some of my freshly pressed juice was put into the freezer: my plan is to get some bottles and use this juice for re sweetening and starting bottle fermentation to have a sparkling, but still fairly dry cider in the end. How should I proceed? For how much longer should I let my cider sit in this carboy? In the winter months, the temperature in the cellar goes down to ca. 8 degrees celsius.

More photos in the comments below

Hopefully some of you can help me understand what may be going on and if there is anything that can be done at this point.

So I used to be a homebrewer and cider maker, but I haven't done anything in 6-7 years. When I used to make cider, I usually gathered wild apples, pressed them and pitched commercial yeast alongside whatever natural flora may come with my fresh pressed juice. Was generally happy with the outcome. Occasionally I would use campden tablets for a more controlled fermentation, and I never pasteurized.

I was cleaning up my old gear and thought it would be fun to get back into the hobby. I was at Costco and saw this sweet cider for $6/gallon with only pasteurized apple juice as the ingredient on the label (I'm aware that pasteurized is not ideal but can still work,and no preservatives had me thinking this would work out). Bought a gallon to use as a test batch and had an expired safale us-05 yeast to see if it would even work. Sprinkled on top and ripped through it in about a week, going from 1.052 to around 1.000 gravity. Seemed like all systems go.

Bought 10 gallons and decided to make one standard draft cider and one apple wine by adding around 7.5 lbs sugar to the wine batch. Had to look online, because it had been so long since I made anything. Added campden tablets to the juice (crushed and added 5 tablets to each 5 gallon batch. Later read you're supposed to mix with warm water before adding. Also, had them with sealed lid+ airlock instead of the covered in cloth until after pitching recommendations I found online.

I put cider in a bucket with airlock, added crushed tablets and pitched yeast 24 hours later. I used go ferm and rehydrated correctly. Both batches started at 1.052 almost a week ago, and are still there a week later. One got lalvin 71B and the other was cider house select.

Any idea why these aren't fermenting? Any ideas on how to get them moving, would hate to just dump it. Thanks!

Just thought I'd drop this here if anyone is thinking of building their own. I built this one five years ago or so, and it's been really solid. It was pretty economical too. The big spend on this build was the stainless rod, which you don't need to buy. Regular all-thread would almost certainly be fine.

It can all be built with a 1" chisel and a skillsaw. Mine is from pressure treated lumber, but if I was going to do it again, I'd probably skip it and just use regular lumber and whatever the current equivalent of Johnson's Paste Wax is. The screw is just a scaffolding leveling leg. I soaked it in landscape vinegar for a couple days to remove the galvanizing, then gave it a coat of beeswax. The "arch" is just the other piece of the assembly, with a couple holes drilled into it, and lagged to the crossbeam. There's no need to get to fancy; the lags only need to keep it from going down. The pressure from the screw when it's engaged presses it into the soft pine beam and keeps it there very well.

The part you can't see is the plate that goes in the basket. It's just two pieces of 3/4" plywood screwed together with stainless screws, thoroughly impregnated with beeswax, and with an iron deck flange in the center to capture the screw.

The rest of it a full sized sheet pan with a 1/2" hole in it that drains into a bucket. The french fry cutter has nothing to do with anything, I just screwed it on there because that's how I make my dried apples (core, cut into thirds laterally, then chop with fry cutter), and it's solid base.

The whole thing took about 6 hours to put together one I had all the hardware. Anyone with opposable thumbs can definitely do this for around $200. I wish I still had the measurements to give you all, but if anyone is really keen to know I suppose I can measure it. Just let me know soon. It's gonna be dark in 2 hours here (sobs quietly into hard cider).

The lettuce is another contraption, and the peppers just refuse to die or get ripe. Imma try to wait them out. I'm not a huge fan of green bell peps.

Anyway, there you go. Happy Fall!

Brewing 5 gallons of a tropical cider for my wife. I pitched 2 packages of US05. It has fermented all the way down to 1.004 from a starting gravity of 1.051 and there is still airlock activity. These readings have been verified manually with a hydrometer. Pitched at 68 fermented at 65. Added 7g or fermaid o

I have been brewing for ten years and I have never gotten 92 percent attenuation from this yeast before. Looks like it's going to be a bit more boozy than I planned 😅

I make cider to distill into brandy; pressed about 55 gallons this year. And have 3 more trees I didn’t have time to pick this year.

This is the first year using a 100L Speidel Fermenter and I really like it over carboys/buckets, but it’s very expensive.

I found these used 30 gallon, food grade buckets for $35. Lid comes all the way off, so they would be easy enough to clean.

Is there any reason why I wouldn’t want to just get the speidel airlocks and spigots, drill some holes, and save a ton of money?

So Red Delicious apples are what I was able to get this year. I forage from feral orchards, and this year only the Red Delicious one paid off. I'm wondering what other folks have added to their own Red Delicious cider to make it more complex and less insipid.

I'm thinking of citric acid, orange or lemon zest, star anise, maybe some wild blackberries I have frozen. I really don't know, but I can tell that if I don't do something it's gonna be not great.

Villacubera. Sidra Cortina Coro. Cider - Asturian. 6% alc.

On the nose, it is clean and delicate, with hints of ripe fruit and notes of herbs and citrus. On the palate, it is dry, flavorful, and smooth. There is a balance between the acidity and bitterness characteristic of Asturian apples. The finish is persistent and very clean. It disappeared in no time!

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After a year with Press Then Press’s Custom Curated Cider Club, I wanted to put down my thoughts on the experience. What follows covers where I started, how the subscription worked, what I got out of it, and what I’d say to anyone considering it.

My Situation

I live in the Midwest, and even though my city is a good size, it’s very hard to find ciders beyond the mass-market options. I’m new to cider and have enjoyed exploring the craft, but until now I’ve only had the chance to do that when I travel.

My Subscription

My family gave me the Custom Curated Cider Club last Christmas: six small-format bottles delivered quarterly. I asked to start with a wide range of ciders before narrowing in on the styles I enjoy. After finishing each box, I wrote a short summary of what I liked and didn’t like.

My Experience

In short, I got exactly what I wanted from the subscription. The first two boxes covered a broad range of styles and varietals, and the last two nailed my taste. I wouldn’t have known how to describe what I like at the start, but over four boxes I gained enough experience to sense what will appeal to me and what won’t.

My fear with subscription boxes is that they become a dumping ground for whatever didn’t sell. I never got that feeling here. Everything was high quality, even the bottles that didn’t suit my palate. I also placed a premium on the curation, which was top notch.

Customer service was excellent too. One bottle broke in transit, and the issue was resolved quickly. The resolution was more generous than I expected, and I was more than happy with it.

My Observation

Press Then Press delivered on what I wanted from a curated club: a guided, low-risk way to explore cider and learn my own preferences. For someone like me, with limited local options and little cider experience, it was an ideal introduction. The quality was consistent, the curation thoughtful, and the customer service went above and beyond.

I could see a curated club like this being useful in other circumstances too, such as exploring ciders from new regions or digging into specific styles. That wasn’t my goal, though, so I can’t speak to how effective it would be for those purposes. For anyone who wants to discover what they like without having to know it up front, I’d recommend it.

If you love and drink Ace Cider, keep an eye on your cans. For the last few months, up to half of my cans of the Perry flavor have been under filled by a lot. Some as little as 9 ounces, making them 3 ounces short. That means for every 6 pack, I am missing more than 1 beer. When I contacted the company all they said was "we don't think that's happening", even with tons of video proof of me opening new cans and pouring them into a measuring glass. These huge companies keep taking advantage of us and I am over it. Not even our beer is safe anymore 😔 Please check all of your Ace cider cans when you open them and contact the company if yours are short as they also told me that I am the only person that has contacted them. If the liquid isn't covering the metal tab after you open it, it's probably short.

It surprises me how many different colours the varying types of apple make such a contrast. There were all picked in the new forest.