The Center for Ecological Design - 5 Gallons of Hard Cider in 5 Minutes

Brew 5 gallons of hard cider in 5 minutes

Did you know that you can make 5 gallons of cider in less than 5 minutes? Seems criminal to buy the stuff when you can make it with $2/gal run-of-the-mill apple juice. You can spruce up your cider by getting creative with additives: try a dry-hopped cider, peach-elderberry, pineapple hibiscus... so many possibilities!

Here we give you the basic instructions for how to make cider. Once you have the equipment, you can make cider in no time, with not much effort at all. There are a lot of options for storage (bottling, kegging, etc.) which we'll cover in another post and link some external resources in the meantime.

Step 1. Obtain supplies.

5 gallon bucket (a brew store or a hardware store). A used bucket is okay, as long as it is in decent shape- you wouldn't want to have a lot of dents or scratches for bacteria to collect, for example.
A brewing lid for your bucket (brew store). This should come with the brew bucket, if not you might be able to get a brewing lid to fit on the bucket you have.
A bung (brew store). This lets the escaping gasses out without letting oxygen in.
Iodine (a brew store). This is for sanitizing.

Yeast (brew store). Ask the brew store professional for their opinion on a cider yeast. We like to use London ESB.
5 gallons of apple juice (grocery store). Make sure the apple juice or cider does not contain sulfates (from concentrate and added vitamins are OK)

Optional: Dextrose (brew store). Cider brewed from apple juice will be about 4-5% ABV. If you want something stronger, add 1 pound of dextrose per percentage point you want to bump up.
Optional: Other fruits and additives. This is where the fun comes in! We love to do elderberry-peach cider. Use frozen fruit and keep everything sanitary.
Optional: A hydrometer (brew store). This is a device used for measuring the alcohol content of homebrews.

Step 2. Sanitize.

Sanitize the bucket, lid, bung, and a bowl to put the bung in after it's sanitized. Mix a few drops of iodine with hot water to rinse over everything, then rinse everything with water only.

Step 3. Prep cider.

Pour the cider into the bucket. If you're adding dextrose, it helps to add some cider, then the dextrose, lift up the bucket to swirl around to dissolve before adding the rest of the juice.

Optional: Check the Original Gravity

Sanitize a ladel or other device for removing some of the mixture. Spin your hydrometer into the liquid to check the original gravity (here's a video). Write this down somewhere- you need the original gravity and the final gravity to calculate the alcohol content!

Step 4. Pitch yeast.

Pitch the yeast. Sprinkle the yeast on top after you've added everything. Make sure to sanitize the yeast bag and scissors you use to cut it open before doing so.

Optional: Fruits and other additives

Add any optional additives. Here's where you can put in your pineapple, peaches, elderberries, hops... let your imagination run wild! We like to keep a notebook with our experiments so we can keep track of which ones came out the best.

Step 5. Close it up.

Put the lid on the bucket. Fill the bung with water up to the line, and push it into the bung opening in the bucket.

Step 6. Wait.

Wait! After about 24-48 hours (depending on the temperature in your home) you will start to notice gasses bubbling out of the bung. Wait about 7-14 days, or until the bung has less than one bubble per minute escaping.

Optional: Check the final gravity

When the cider's done brewing, make sure you check the final gravity, and consult a table or calculator to get your alcohol content.

Step 7. Bottle or keg.

Bottle your cider, or for an easier option, put it in a keg! If bottled, carbonation should appear within a week or two. With a keg, you can force carbonate.
If you don't have a bottle topper or keg, you could sanitize some glass jars and put the cider in there. It just won't be very bubbly.

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