For homebrew enthusiasts interested in making apple cider, but find themselves far from a fresh source of ground juice in the orchard, you’ll be glad to know that there are other sources for your wort. You can make hard apple cider using store-bought juice. Store-bought juice is a fair replacement for freshly ground juice, as long as it doesn’t contain preservatives. 100% pure juice is best suited for this application, and pasteurized juice may also be preferred, as this process removes unwanted bacteria or yeast that may be present in the juice. I personally used filtered and pasteurized juice from cans, with very decent results! Of course, it was necessary to add yeast to ferment the juice, as well as a fair amount of sugar to reach the alcoholic level I was aiming for, but a decent level can be achieved without the addition of sugars.
This is the method I used for 5 gallons, which resulted in a dry, flat, slow fermenting cider:
1. Buy enough juice cans for 5 gallons (I bought 15 cans, which was on sale for $0.99)
2. For cans in a primary fermentation container
3. Inoculate with a white wine yeast. I added the dry yeast, but you may want to start the process by following the yeast preparation procedure on the package. It is not necessary to sterilize the juice with campden tablets if it is pasteurized.
4. Wait a few days to a week for the vigorous bubbling ferment to start and settle.
5. Transfer the liquid to the secondary fermentation vessel and fit with an airlock.
6. Keep the fermenting cider in a cool dark place with little agitation and let the juice continue to ferment until dry (when the bubbling stops).
7. Transfer to another container or bottle after 30 days.
8. Let the cider age from 6 months to a year.
This is not exactly the best procedure for making cider, and the initial results showed. I started giving samples to friends and family with very little good response. I thought my efforts had failed me, so I put down the cider to sit quietly away from the harsh criticism and turned-up noses. It wasn’t until about a year after I had racked the cider in a storage container that I decided to try the cider again. This tasting turned out to be much better than before, and I started sharing once again. To my delight, I began receiving requests for bottles of this cider, reminiscent of Boone’s Farm Wine, a fact of which I am very proud.
Due to the clarity of the filtered and pasteurized juice, the resulting cider was quite clear, without the use of cleaning agents or filtering of the finished product. The only cleanup procedure was racking after thirty days and allowing other particles to settle during the year. I’m sure using a better procedure could achieve superior results, but I’m very happy with my results when making apple cider with store-bought juice.