Oliver Radcliffe
There is something quietly satisfying about turning a garden nuisance into a store cupboard treasure. Every October, the ground beneath my trees fills with fruit that is too small, too bruised or too sharp to eat from the hand — and yet the best cider I have ever made came from exactly those apples. If you have a glut, a bucket and a bit of patience, you can do the same.
Commercial cider makers chase a careful balance: sweet, sharp and bittersweet apples blended together. You can copy that logic with whatever falls on your grass. A rough rule is equal parts by weight of sweet eaters (Cox, Gala, Katy), sharp cookers (Bramley, Grenadier) and bitter or astringent fruit — and yes, crab apples count, adding the tannin that gives cider its backbone and that faintly dry, tea-like finish.
Windfalls are perfectly suited to this. They are often riper, softer and sweeter than fruit you would bother to pick, and a little bruising makes them easier to press. Discard anything mouldy or fermenting on the tree, but do not be fussy about scars and bird pecks.
- Collect fruit daily if you can. Wasps, slugs and rot move fast in wet weather.
- Sort into crates, throwing out any brown, soft or whiffy apples, and cut generous chunks out of bruised patches.
- Rinse in cold water and pick out leaves, grass and the odd earwig. There is no need to peel or core.
- Leave the sorted fruit in a cool shed or garage for a week or two to soften — growers call it "sweating" — which noticeably improves the juice yield.
Aim to press reasonably soon after gathering. Two or three crates of mixed apples will comfortably fill a couple of demijohns, with juice left over.
Scratching and Pressing
Apples must be pulped before they give up their juice. A proper scratter is lovely, but a food processor, a sturdy bucket and a good deal of elbow grease will do at small scale. You want a coarse, wet pulp rather than a smooth purée, and do not worry when it turns brown — that is just oxidation, and it actually helps flavour and colour.
Leave the pulp to stand for half an hour, then press it. A traditional rack-and-cloth press is ideal, but plenty of smallholders get by with a clean brewing bag, a bucket with holes drilled in the base and a plank used as a lever. Work in small batches, press slowly, and stop when the pulp feels dry rather than wet. Expect roughly three litres of juice from every five kilos of apples.
Into the Demijohn: The First Fermentation
Strain the juice through a sterilised muslin into a clean fermenting bucket or demijohn, leaving plenty of headspace for the froth. Then slow things down deliberately. Add one crushed Campden tablet per 4.5 litres and leave it for 24 hours; this knocks back wild yeasts and bacteria so your chosen yeast can take charge.
- Add a sachet of cider or wine yeast, a teaspoon of yeast nutrient and a pinch of pectolase to break down haze.
- Fit an airlock and keep the vessel somewhere cool and dark at around 15–18°C.
- Let it bubble for a week in the bucket, then transfer to a demijohn under airlock for another fortnight.
- Take a hydrometer reading at the start. Around 1.050 is a good target; anything much lower will give a thin, weak drink.
Racking, Maturing and Building the Fizz
Once the bubbles slow to a crawl, rack the cider off its sediment into a clean demijohn, topping up with a little reserved juice or cooled boiled water to reduce the airspace. Repeat this racking every four to six weeks. Over three to six months the cider will drop bright, soften and lose that raw, yeasty edge.
Fermentation is finished when the hydrometer reads the same on two readings a week apart — usually somewhere between 0.998 and 1.005 for a properly dry cider. That gives you roughly 6–7 per cent alcohol if you started near 1.050.
Bottling for Autumn Gatherings
A gentle sparkle suits this style beautifully. Bulk prime with about 8g of sugar per litre — or a level teaspoon per 500ml bottle — then bottle into strong crown-capped beer bottles or champagne bottles. Never use thin glass. If you are unsure whether fermentation has truly stopped, fill one plastic fizzy-drinks bottle as well: when it feels rock hard, the rest are ready to chill.
Keep the bottles somewhere cool for two to three weeks, then serve well chilled, opened over a sink and poured in one steady motion. Dry, faintly sparkling homemade cider is superb alongside roast pork, sharp cheese and a bonfire, and it mulls wonderfully with a cinnamon stick and a strip of orange peel. Whatever the weather does, you will have bottled a little of the orchard.
