Easy Apple Cider (from cartons)

You will need

• Pure apple juice (from cartons, NO preservative)4.5 L
• Cider or wine yeast1 sachet

Method

1. 1

   Sanitise everything (you learned this on your first wine).

2. 2

   This wine's lesson is pitching the yeast properly. Dried yeast wakes up best if you 'rehydrate' it first: sprinkle it over a small cup of warm (not hot) water, about blood temperature, and leave it 10-15 minutes until it looks creamy. Throwing dry yeast straight onto cold juice half-wastes it.

3. 3

   Pour the apple juice into your sanitised demijohn (leave a hand's width of space at the top).

4. 4

   Stir in your woken-up yeast, fit the airlock, keep it somewhere cool for a cleaner-tasting cider.

5. 5

   Ferment until it stops bubbling and tastes dry, then pour off the sediment and bottle.

6. 6

   Drink young and fresh. Apple juice from a carton makes a genuinely good, sessionable cider for almost nothing.