Julian, and Farnum Hill are both good. Farnum has a wide selection of great dry ciders if you can find it. I like Strongbow as well but it's kinda on the sweet side. Angry Orchard isn't bad in a pinch either.
I got overwhelmed and scrapped the project, lol, but I think I might try a less ambitious version using local farm's cider and just adding different yeasts to try different versions. I also want to try to hop one if possible, probably citra hops.
I have made it from farm stand cider (fresh pressed with no preservatives). Just add sugar and let the natural yeast ferment in a carboy. You can add champagne yeast, but it will make it drier.
A place near me has JULIAN HARD CIDER (I copied and pasted, then wrote this out rather than fix the punctuation)...think I'll pick some up today. They also have a Julian Cherry Bomb.
Picked up some stongbow...I'm convinced it's the nectar of the gods. A tad pricey, I paid $10 for 6...which I guess it not really bad unless you're used to drinking cheap stuff (Redds at $8 for 6).
A place near me has JULIAN HARD CIDER (I copied and pasted, then wrote this out rather than fix the punctuation)...think I'll pick some up today. They also have a Julian Cherry Bomb.
Forgot about these guys, the regular is really good, the cherry bomb is cough syrup level terrible.
Wanted to follow up on this as I just recently bottled up my cider from last year. I ended up adding additional, unfermented cider, along with more juiced fruit (same orchard fruits). After pulling the cider off the pulp and dregs, I ended up with just over 4 gallons. It spent almost a year in the carboy on a mixture of different strains of yeast and bacteria and was wonderfully dry, crisp and funky. Definitely a lot of fruit without being sweet, syrupy, artificial or cloying. I bottled with honey as a priming sugar and it carbed up much quicker than I had expected. I've opened a couple of bottles and I really love it. I've already started next year's batch.
For next year, I've decided to mix things up a bit and have blended cider apples, crab apples, some eating apples, Italian plums and concord grapes. I'll continue adding to it as the apples come in (one of my local farms was harvesting the rest of their heirloom apples last weekend). Shooting for a 4-5 gallon batch at bottling because I know I'll regret anything less than that.
Did anyone else have any luck with fermenting a cider?
Cool. I'm a hard cider lover. Never heard of soft cider, but great to know, since I'm not a big fan of carbonation. If you need reviewers I'd be happy to volunteer?
I just finished a Woodchuck "Gumption" Hard cider.
Comments
I got overwhelmed and scrapped the project, lol, but I think I might try a less ambitious version using local farm's cider and just adding different yeasts to try different versions. I also want to try to hop one if possible, probably citra hops.
For next year, I've decided to mix things up a bit and have blended cider apples, crab apples, some eating apples, Italian plums and concord grapes. I'll continue adding to it as the apples come in (one of my local farms was harvesting the rest of their heirloom apples last weekend). Shooting for a 4-5 gallon batch at bottling because I know I'll regret anything less than that.
Did anyone else have any luck with fermenting a cider?
I just finished a Woodchuck "Gumption" Hard cider.