Sparkling Apple

First time

In season January to December · makes 4.5 L · target OG 1.048

Teaches the one genuinely risky beginner technique — priming for sparkle — with the pressure-bottle and measured-sugar rules front and centre.

Before you start. Sparkling wine must be bottled ONLY in pressure-rated bottles (Champagne/cava/PET), with no more than half a teaspoon of priming sugar per bottle — ordinary bottles can burst.

You will need

Pure apple juice (carton, no preservative)4.5 L
Cider or sparkling yeast1 sachet
Sugar, for priminghalf a teaspoon per bottle

Method

1
Sanitise. Ferment a plain dry cider from the carton juice exactly as before — pitch yeast, ferment until two gravity readings a few days apart match, low and dry, then let it clear.
2
This wine's lesson is putting the fizz in SAFELY. A finished dry wine has no sugar left; you add a tiny, MEASURED amount back per bottle, the yeast eats it in the sealed bottle, and the gas has nowhere to go but into the drink.
3
The measure matters and the bottle matters more: use only bottles rated for pressure (Champagne, cava or PET fizzy-drink bottles), and no more than half a teaspoon of sugar per bottle. Too much sugar, or an ordinary wine bottle, and it can burst.
4
Prime each pressure-rated bottle with the measured sugar, fill, cap or wire the cork, and leave two to three weeks somewhere room-temperature.
5
Chill before opening, and open carefully over a sink the first time.
6
A crisp, lightly sparkling cider for almost nothing.

What this one teaches you

· Priming a sparkling wine

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An original MakeWine recipe.