Hard Cider from Scratch: Apple Varieties and Fermentation

Hard cider is one of the oldest and most accessible fermented drinks — fermented apple juice with a history as long as European agriculture. A well-made cider is complex, nuanced, and utterly distinct from the sugary commercial product sold in pint glasses. The key is the apple.

Apple Varieties: The Foundation

Not all apples make good cider. Dessert apples (eating apples like Gala or Braeburn) are too sweet and too low in tannin — they produce thin, bland cider. The best ciders come from specific cider apple varieties or skilled blending of different types.

The Four Apple Categories

The ideal cider blend: 60–70% bittersweet + 20–30% sharp + 10% sweet. This mirrors the approach of traditional farmhouse ciders.

If you don't have access to cider-specific varieties, a blend of:

• Cox (sweet-sharp) or Discovery (sweet)
• Bramley (very sharp, high malic acid)
• Wild crabapple (high tannin)

...produces a more interesting cider than pure Bramley or pure Cox alone.

Pressing and Must Preparation

Milling

Apples must be milled (scratted) before pressing — whole apples won't yield juice efficiently. Traditional scratters chop the apple into a pulp (pomace). Home options: food processor in batches, a dedicated apple scratter/crusher.

Pressing

A rack-and-cloth press or basket press extracts juice from the pomace. Yield: typically 65–75% juice by weight. Peristaltic pumps move juice to fermentation vessels.

Campden tablet

Add 1 Campden tablet per 4.5L of juice to knock back wild yeast and bacteria before inoculating with commercial yeast. Wait 12–24 hours.

OG measurement

Cider apple juice typically runs 1.040–1.070 SG (10–17°Bx). For a dry cider:

• Target OG: 1.050–1.060 → approximately 6.5–8% ABV when fermented dry
• If the juice is at 1.040 (thin crop), add a small amount of sugar to reach target

Fermentation

Yeast selection

• EC-1118: clean, very dry, reliable — the workhorse of commercial cider
• Nottingham ale yeast: slightly fruity, popular for English farmhouse-style cider
• Lalvin 71B: fruity ester production, for a more aromatic style
• Wild / spontaneous: traditional farmhouse method. High risk of inconsistency, but can produce extraordinary complexity.

Temperature

Cider ferments best at 12–18°C. Cooler fermentation preserves fresh apple aromatics. Avoid above 22°C — heat strips aroma and can produce off-flavours.

Nutrient additions

Apple juice is nutrient-poor (similar to honey). Add 1–2g/L Fermaid-K or equivalent at the start of fermentation to ensure clean, complete conversion.

Timeline

A typical 6% cider ferments in 2–4 weeks at 15°C. Check gravity regularly. Confirm FG is stable before racking (0.998–1.002 for dry cider).

Still vs Sparkling Cider

Still cider: Bottle with no priming sugar. Careful SO₂ stabilisation required.

Sparkling cider:

• Force carbonation (CO₂ from a gas cylinder): consistent, immediate, professional
• Natural carbonation (priming sugar + bottle conditioning): traditional. Add 6–8g glucose per litre, bottle immediately, allow 2–4 weeks for conditioning.

Sweetening

Dry cider (FG 0.998) can be intensely acidic — not everyone's preference. Off-dry options:

• Stabilise and back-sweeten (sorbate + SO₂ + sugar, as per country wine guide)
• Blend with unfermented juice (keeved juice — see keeving article) for natural sweetness
• Keeve the juice pre-fermentation to limit fermentation naturally (traditional French method)

Common Cider Faults