Hard Apple Cider - One Path to Knowledge

[This essay was originally publish at UBRON on Sunday, September 27, 2009.]

My Mother has a couple apple trees in her back yard. And there are literally hundreds of apples all over the ground and on the tree. She brought over two bags yesterday. Most weren't very pretty, but they were basically in good condition (no insects).

I have always wanted to make hard cider, and since the funds are low I thought this might be a way to have some yummy lite-duty alcohol in a few weeks. I researched the process quite thoroughly and then set about putting my plan into motion.

As you may have guessed I look at everything (I mean EVERYTHING) with an analytical eye and as an opportunity for experimentation. Thankfully I am also given to creative urges so this little afternoon project was a simply joyous one for me!

Knowing some organic chemistry, I already realized that apples had everything needed for the fairly efficient production of alcohol. All that is needed to make alcohol is...

Water, sugar and yeast. Apples have plenty of yeast, a good amount of sugar and also of course water. There is no need to "activate the yeast" since it is already naturally active (not in a dormant state as with store-bought baker's or brewer's yeast). To supplement the ingredients additional refined sugar is added and of course more water, along with spices; cinnamon and cloves. Orange peels and honey can be added too.

The chemistry behind the process is easy: Yeast eats sugar and produces carbon dioxide and alcohol. The more sugar that is dissolved in the water, the more alcohol that can be made. The production of these two things (CO2 and alcohol) can become very apparent during the process.

Mostly one has to worry about the building up of pressure from the CO2 in whatever container one uses. To deal with this, professionals use what is call a water lock. This is basically a S-shaped tube with a reservoir of water in the middle of it. The CO2 is able to push its way through the water and escape into the outside air. The reason one can't leave the container open is because when alcohol contacts air it turns into vinegar. That's not a bad thing, if you want vinegar ;), but a pain in the ass if your trying to produce alcohol. A balloon can be used too, with a small hole pricked in it. Honestly (found as an idea in a YouTube video about how prisoners brew their own stuff), I used condoms, since they are not being utilized for any other activities right now. ;) The rubber-- ehemm--"balloon" is then able to release the CO2 without letting in outside air.

Anyway, upon every worthwhile project a little hard work must fall. And in this case, it meant cutting up apples and discarding the yucky bits. And it was a JOB! But a satisfying one.

Maybe you've experienced this too... Whenever I'm doing monotonous work like this my mind always wanders and all kinds of thought pass by. I suddenly realized where many of our metaphors must have had their origins...


"Rotten to the core."

"One bad apple spoils the bunch."

"Apple of my eye."

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away." (and constipation, I might add)

"American as apple pie."

"Bad apple."


I strongly suspect that an apple was being examined, cut-up, bitten into or viewed in a tree, when all of these were first thought of, rather than suddenly popping into the minds of the originators.

Another thing that surprised me was the little lesson on appearances that came to mind...

I noticed that some of the most deformed and ugly apples, had the cleanest juiciest flesh. I have to admit to eating some of those while I worked. And I came across an ideal "picture- book" example of an apple, with one little hole in it. But when I cut it open it was the most rotted-out one in the bag. Certainly these are apt metaphors for people as well.

Whenever I'm processing or preparing fruit and vegetables for dinner, pickling or in this case hard cider, I am just blown away by nature's abundance. Nature doesn't screw around. It makes sure that a plant over-compensates for every contingency. Average, healthy apple trees don't have two or three apples, they have hundreds and hundreds. Frequently the branches bend down to the ground offering a few other metaphors, the "low hanging fruit." The tree let's its fruit "go out on a limb" in order to reproduce itself. And "when the bow breaks," that apple will fall... In fact, all the apples on the branch can end up on the ground this way. Apple trees are very prolific in new branch growth the next year though. Often two more branches will grow, where one has broken off. And the tree may live to 80 or even 100 years!

AND apples aren't small amounts of sweet flesh around mostly seeds, the are fat with juicy firmness. If one were to work out the volume of usable flesh to non flesh on an apple, my sense is that it would be something like 1,000 to 1. Try that with a pomegranate!

What also, crossed my mind as I was throwing the last chunks of apple into my huge bowl that was now spilling over, is how humans have largely directed the growth of the most common plants we eat. It is likely that the apples we have now are very different from the ones in ancient times.

It may be interesting to note that even as common a fruit as apples are not easy to produce. No one sells apple seeds. And if you do buy them, you're getting shafted. This is because nearly all apples are hybridized. This is done by germinating any-old apple seed and then planting it to form what is called a "root stock". When the roots have firmly embedded themselves in the soil, the top of the little sapling is cut off and a young sprout from an already-producing tree is grafted on to the root stock. Now, that doesn't mean you can't grow an apple from a seed, without grafting. But industry avoids this route in order to have consistency in quality and yield. You never know what kind of apple you will end up with when growing from seed. Not to mention it takes a good 6-10 years before fruit is produced.

[As an aside, grafting is a HUGELY efficient way to continue a successful line of plants-- actually it is all the same 'plant'. This is like cloning (where a piece of plant is allowed to root in hormone solution or water and then planted). I clone Salvia divinorum plants. Strange that my Salvia IS the same plant that originally came from Mexico, many years ago. It is called the "Blosser strain" for the original plant brought back from Mexico by anthropologist, Bret Blosser and then cloned, in the 1990's. Genetically, that plant in Mexico and now in my kitchen has never experienced death nor the dormancy of seed. Even in Mexico, its growth along river banks, allows the mature plants to fall over and then root and grow new stalks. Salvia has done this for thousands of years. And - until recent times - ONLY existed in Oaxaca among human settlements (plants grown only by humans and not in the wild are called, "cultigens"). It is listed as growing there as far back as the Mayans recorded and then later, the great Aztecs. I will be writing more about Salvia later. One final word about grafting, though. It is not widely known (and perhaps the men in black will show up at my door tomorrow morning for tell you all this), but the Hop plant (like what is used in beer) is a partial psychoactive sedative. But even more interesting is that Hops can be grafted on to Cannabis root stock, allowing the THC from the Cannabis to be transferred from the roots into the the actual Hop plant itself, giving the psychoactive properties of BOTH the the new plant. Hop sales are rigorously regulated because of this reason, by our lovingly fascist DEA.]

Finally, all the apples went through my juicer, which is getting old and complains enormously about being put to work. It goes from running smoothly to sounding like monster truck in my kitchen. Somehow I coaxed all the apples through and ended up with a modest 2.5 liters (about 2/3 gallons) of delicious apple cider. The rest of the recipe was easy...

The juice was split evenly into two 1-gallon plastic jugs. Then 2 pounds of white sugar were dissolved in warm Poland Spring water, with the spices added. I did not allow the water to boil because yeast will be killed by hot water. Then I divided the spicy sugar water into each of the jugs, capped each, and shook them vigorously for about 30 seconds each. The caps were removed and the now-unsafe for sex condoms, pulled out slightly (no jokes about that please), and stretched over the mouths of each jug. If you must know, they WERE lubricated, but that stuff is non-toxic and won't have any effect at all on the final result.

I labeled each and dated them, gently slipping them into a doubly- walled, large paper bag and placed it in a dark, cool, dry place in my kitchen.

A break-down of ingredients is here, in case anyone wants to duplicate this knowledge- inducing venture:

1/3 gallon (1.25 liters) of apple cider

2/3 gallon (2.5 liters) spring, or distilled water

1 pound of refined white sugar, or honey

1/2 TBSP cinnamon

1/2 TBSP cloves

Shake, and cap with a condom. Makes 1 gallon of apple hooch. Should be fully fermented in 2-4 weeks, when bubbling has stopped. Filter through cheese cloth, or an old (clean) T-shirt works well, into clean seal-able bottles.

Because all the sugar will have been used up by the yeast (that lack of food then kills the yeast, which drops to the bottom), you can sweeten the final stuff with sugar syrup. I've also heard that people use honey or maple syrup. However, keep in mind that when it comes to sweetening, be sure, as best you can, that all the yeast is dead and filtered out, or it will begin fermenting again when you add sugar. One person had the excellent idea of using stevia (a natural sweetener, many times more potent than sugar, with out all the diabetic, tooth-decaying properties of real sugar). Then, ENJOY!

One last thing. Any fruit juice can be used to ferment into an alcoholic "wine". Juice from fruit in it's raw state, like apples, grapes, peaches, etc... CAN be fermented without buying supplemental yeast. Aviod shiny clean fruit since much of the yeast is on and in the skin.

You can also use regular store-bought juice, like Ocean Spray. They are usually LOADED with sugar (part of America's biggest health problem, frankly), but in the case of fermentation, the more sugar the better. Most juices have 40 grams of sugar in only 8 oz of juice! But you'll need to buy yeast for bottled juice.

I have heard of people fermenting flat Coke and Pepsi for what must be a very disturbingly strange tasting wine.

My advice is to get as much knowledge from the process as you can. And this can come in the form of doing, but as I said above, as well, thinking.

If you made it all the way through this essay, you DESERVE a drink!