First Hard Cider

Brew Day: 12/09/15


My wife really loves hard cider, and I'm learning to really appreciate it as well. So to keep harmony in our house and have a wonderful beverage over the holidays, I decided to test my cider "skills". I use the terms skills lightly as this is my first hard cider I've ever attempted.

I visited my local homebrew shop, Northern Brewer, and picked up a cider kit by Brewer's Best. The kit makes 6 gallons, which I will rack into a 5 gallon keg. I only have 15 days until Christmas, so my goal is to have it ferment out completely and be force carbonated in time for my in-law's Christmas eve party.


Fermentation Update: 12/16/15

Due to the heat given off by fermentation, I decided to use my Cool Brewing bag after day 2. We're on the 3rd floor of our apartment building which makes the ambient temp, even in December, in the low 70's. Using frozen water bottles, which I swapped out twice a day, I was able to keep the fermentation temp in the upper 60's. If I had 2 liter sized frozen bottles, they would've lasted 24 hours before being changed but we don't drink much soda, so we didn't have any empty 2 liters around. Gave me another excuse to check on the cider each morning/evening.

Bag resting underneath the table.

To show how much room is inside.

No fermometer on the bucket, just put a fridge

thermometer in the bag to watch temps.

I'm not going to list the entire recipe. You can see that HERE, but I did record my process. Below is the video I shot in my kitchen while following the kit's directions and generally trying not to make a mess of the place (that apple concentrate is sticky stuff). But first, here's the numbers:

OG: 1.048
FG: 1.004
Actual ABV: 5.4%

Watch on YouTube by clicking HERE

Christmas Serving Update: 12/25/15

The keg carbed up nicely in time for Christmas day. 4 of the 6 people in attendance really liked it. One of the nay-sayers doesn't like hard cider, and the other one is just figuring out what drinks she likes and wanted something sweeter. I'll call those figures a win. It was suggested we do a side-by-side with the Angry Orchard we had in the basement fridge, but by the time dinner was over, we were too stuffed and already fighting off a cider, beer, port buzz.

I added 1/2 tsp of gelatin once FG had been reached and let it sit 2 days before kegging. It came out nicely clear and bubbly.

Have you tried gelatin in your beer or cider? Let me know in the comments.