Hard Cider -- old fashioned ways of making it?

yeah, the old fashioned way isn't too different. basically you would boil the juice, let it cool to about 80 degrees or so, add the yeast (if they don't have access to store bought yeast, they can simply expose the mixture to the air, or inoculate it with a magical 'brewing stick' which is simply a stick that has a yeast culture living in it) and then put it in a barrel. The barrel is typically stored on its side during fermentation. It is an easy thing to construct a fermentation lock ( a device that allows air to escape but none to enter) out of glass, metal, or plastic if available. (I have a book that shows how to make one out of a straw and an ordinary balloon). Fermentation is slow, it should take a few months. Racking, which is transferring the cider from one container to another to help rid it of impurities is recommended after the first period of fermentation ends (you can tell when the fermentation lock stops bubbling regularly). This is mostly done these days with a plastic hose, but could be done with a metal pipe or even a hollow bit of cane (sometimes the plastic tool we use is still called a cane). The cider is siphoned out, leaving the disgusting dead yeast (called the lees) on the bottom of the barrel. (I've seen, but not tried, certain baking recipes that call for the use of lees as an ingredient)

Bottling is done much like today. If metal caps are available, its a simple matter of sterilizing the bottles, filling them with a siphon, and capping them. You can make a fully functional bottle capper with stuff you could get at a modern or 19th century hardware store. If metal caps are not available, corks made from cork or even ceramic could be used, usually secured in place with a wire. Visit your local liquor store; there will be exotic imported beer that are plugged in this way.

At the time of bottling, extra sugar will be added to create the carbonation. You will have to wait at least 2 weeks between bottling and drinking.

To obtain the juice, apples are pressed. A fairly simple device, an apple press is basically a box with one side being a press attached to a hand operated piston. This is cranked down, like a vise, and the apples are squeezed. A strong man should have no difficulty pressing apples with such a device. The crank that he turns would be fairly substantial; 3 or 4 feet long. The juice runs out through holes, and passes through a filter, commonly made of cheesecloth. It is then collected in a pail. The waste apple bits (called pomace) make a good animal feed, or compost for a vegetable garden. Simply google images "apple press" to see what they look like.

Generally it is not a good idea to boil apple becuase of the pectin. You may end up with apple gelatin. Many of today's varieties are sugar enhanced through selective breeding, but old varieties of apple will be lower on sugar and higher in pectin. The norm was to use a screw press, much like would be used for squeezing grapes or olives. Old variety ciders are probably going to ferment to somewhere between 1 and 2.5% alcohol. If you want higher alcohol you'd need to add some form of sugar, usually in the form of honey which normally has appropriate wild yeasts already. Read up on meadmaking and homebrewing. An easy read, but a little oversimplified to sometimes being wrong in a few places is Charlie Papazian's book

Temperature control is the key to brewing. Too much flux of temperature (more than about 1-2 degrees Fahrenheit in a 24 hour span for sensitive yeast strains and about 5 degrees for tougher ones with harsher flavors) will result in a stuck fermentation and increase the risk of overgrowth of bacteria resulting in vinegar. The root cellar would be the place to go.

Depending on how controlled the conditions and the sugar content, it might only take a week to ferment if it is effectively an ale yeast, but up to months for lager yeasts. Upping the sugar in the beginning actually makes it easier to ferment, but there is a limit.

Don't confuse fermentation with aging. Aging mellows the flavor and makes it more palatable without effectively changing the alcohol content. That all pretty much takes place during the primary fermentation.

Here is a easy recipe for making hard cider, I believe it should work for you setting.

1. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Press the apples and strain the juice [/FONT]​
2. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Fresh cider should be in clean containers. Wooden barrels make the best hard cider as the wood breathes and gives the cider proper aging.[/FONT]​
3. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]To the cider add 1lb. of sugar per gallon for a dry hard cider (not sweet) or 1 1/2 lbs. for a sweet drink. Honey can be substituted for sugar on a pound per pound basis. Sugar and honey should be dissolved by warming some cider and mixing the sugar and honey until completely dissolved; then mix with the cider.[/FONT]​
4. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Natural yeast in the juice will ferment the sugar to alcohol. Yeast need not be added, although it can without any problem.
   [/FONT]​
5. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]Put air lock on container and keep at 60-70F for a couple of months. Lower temperatures take longer for product to change from sugar to alcohol.[/FONT]​
6. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]After 2 months the juice should be decanted off (siphoned out of the container), the container washed, and the juice put back into the container. Do not use siphon hose closer than 4" from bottom of container as this is where all the sediment is resting.[/FONT]​
7. [FONT=Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif]After decanting, store at 40 - 60F in a wooden barrel and wait for proper aging -- 6 months to 6 years, depending upon desires.[/FONT]​

Some pictures here http://www.millhousecider.com/history.html

You can make hard apple and pear cider with "wild" yeasts--basically the yeasts in the air--but even in the middle ages, they would use specifically grown yeasts. Wild yeast can be a bit of a gamble.

I'm fond of using "Champagne" yeast; you can buy it in a brewer's store, but it's just a specific strain of yeast, and you can keep your own "starter" from year to year.

Also, picky folks will core the apples before crushing--the seeds can add bitterness.

Feed the cores to your pigs, and use the crushed mass to make apple sauce and apple butter.

Also, using honey will help with the fermentation, if the honey is "wild," not heat pasteurized, and do you want to taste the juice after crushing--you might combine two sorts of apple juice, or add pear for sweeter taste.

Leva said:

They'd probably bottle the cider in clay jugs with wooden or wax stoppers, if that would work.

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Cork is ideal; in New England willow stops are common; you cork it (renewable resource) than wax the cork. Color code the wax to separate pear from apple, slightly buzzy from 6% ABV, etc. You do NOT reuse the stops.

You put them in the root cellar, on platforms or shelves, not on the floor or ground. You turn the bottles gently every month or so, if you're aging the cider.

Don't you...

have to be careful pressing the apples? Horsehair mat filters between layers of apples I vaguely remember.

Try the John Seymour Self Sufficiency books - there is one on cider making.

Leva said:

HOW would they juice the apples? I'm assuming some sort of press, but what would it look like, and how would they get the pressure needed to force the juice out?

-- Leva

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We used a hand-turned press from the 1800s, made by the Shakers at Sabbathday Lake. A crank turned several rollers that were staggered so that apples as they dropped down from the hopper on the top were crushed several times, and then a paddle like thing sort of scooped up the pulp and put it on the top again. The paddle mechanism wasn't very efficient, so mostly, I'd scoop up the marble sized pulp in a cut down plastic gallon milk jug, and send it through again.

Eventually you get very crushed apples on the pulping trays, made of a wooden frame with fine wire mesh, so the juice dripped down into a crock that fit under the press, on a sort of shelf at the bottom.

We had several of the trays (maybe 10 or 15), and seven or eight ten gallon crocks for collecting the apple/pear/grape juice.

You also would strain the juice through cheese cloth. Some people, "back then," and now add a sulfide (sulphite--I forget which is which); the same one used in wine making, in tiny (mlg.) amounts, to clarify the wine and prevent certain undesirable bacteria; this use of an additive is not kosher, btw.

Leva said:

The MCs just lost most of their goat herd to seizure by the military. They're looking for new ways of making a living and one of them's looking at making hard apple cider.

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You press the apples - and that's a bottleneck in itself, because you are assuming a large orchard is already producing - strain the juice and put it in clean wooden barrels.

Keep it cool and it slowly ferments, gets sparkly and alcoholic. That's "hard cider".

Take that, run it through a still and you have applejack - apple moonshine.

Age that in oak barrels and you have apple brandy.