Super Easy Hard Cider Recipe (Apple, Cranberry, and Raspberry)

Last year, I made some hard cider that was delicious and gave you a kick in the pants with its 8.5% alcohol by volume. It was also very, very expensive to brew. Getting freshly pressed, organic, unpasteurized cider can be quite costly (unless you have a fruit press). Due to the cost of graduate school, I don't quite have the funds to make fancy hard cider this year, so I decided to brew some with store-bought juice.

I went to Costco and bought 4 gallons of 100% fresh pressed, albeit pasteurized, apple juice. I also bought 1.5 gallons of cranberry raspberry juice blend (again, 100% juice). It is important to note that neither of these juices had any sodium-based preservatives in them, and if you're planning on making your own cider, make sure you also get juice without preservatives. Your yeast may not propagate if the juice has preservatives in it.

 Although I could have used only apple juice, I thought that the tart and sweet flavor of the cranberry raspberry juice would give the cider a nice flavor profile. Feel free to experiment, however! Think of the apple juice as the canvas and the other juice(s) as the paints.

In the secondary fermenter

For this recipe, you will need the following:

• 6-6.5 gallon sanitized fermenting bucket or carboy for primary fermentation
• 5 gallon sanitized carboy for secondary fermentation
• 5-5.5 gallons of juice
• 3-5 lbs. of white table sugar (your resulting beverage will be 7-12 % alcohol, depending on how much sugar you use). If you'd like a very low alcohol cider, you can just not add any sugar at all; your resulting beverage should be around 3-4% alcohol.
• Wyeast 4766, Cider Yeast
• Sanitized racking equipment
• Yeast nutrient, if adding more than 3 lbs. of sugar (add 1 tsp per gallon of juice).

 Here is the process:

• Heat one gallon of juice until it is warm enough to dissolve the sugar in it. Do not boil the juice.
• Stir in your desired amount of sugar until it is completely dissolved.
• Mix the sugar/juice mixture and yeast nutrient (if needed) into your sanitized primary fermenter with the rest of the juice.
• Allow the mixture to reach room temperature and then pitch your yeast.
• Place the cider out of direct sunlight in an area that is between 60*F and 70*F. Allow to ferment for 2 weeks.
• Siphon the cider into the secondary fermenter (do not use your mouth to siphon, as you will probably contaminate the cider with bacteria). Allow to ferment in the same area for another 2 weeks.
• Bottle or keg the cider. Drink and be merry!

How I built my kegerator out of a 25 cu. ft. upright freezer (aka keezer)

I have wanted a kegerator for years, long before I began brewing beer. After I had gotten a solid feel for brewing, I decided it was time to get a force-carbonation setup and build a kegerator. At first, I began looking for mini-fridges, but I really wanted to build a setup that could take 4 Cornelius kegs (5-gallon) and a CO2 tank. I could not find a decently priced, used mini-fridge that could fit all of it. I happened across a 25 cu. ft. commercial freezer on Craigslist for a great price, so I bought it. With this size, I will be able to fit up to 7 kegs and a 10 lb. CO2 tank. The initial setup is quite costly, so I only installed one tap to start, but I have a 4-way gas manifold which allowed me to expand to 4 taps over time.





First, I cut out the three bottom shelves in the door to allow more room for the kegs. I used a cordless electric handsaw to cut out the shelves, and then I used some plant-based spray-on foam insulation (picked up at my local hardware store) to fill the gaping holes that remained. After that, I cut off the excess foam insulation and then sanded it down.

I retained the top few shelves for storing glasses. I went to Goodwill and picked up both pint and liter glasses. It's good to have options!

I bought a Perlick 525 Stainless Steel faucet, which I am super satisfied with. These faucets are forward-sealing, so they are easier to clean and less likely to harbor bacteria. I purchased these shanks from MoreBeer.com, and they were the perfect size for the freezer door.






Installing the faucet was rather easy: I simply used a 1" hole saw to bore a hole through the freezer door, then I slid the shank in and tightened it down and installed the tap.

I bought an Eva-Dry e500 dehumidifier for the freezer, which has proven to be a great investment. I'd highly recommend getting one, should you decide to build a kegerator. It has a 10 year life span and you can recharge it by simply plugging it into a wall outlet for an hour. You can see it positioned behind my 4-way CO2 manifold in the picture to the right.





To keep the freezer's temperature sitting at 40*F (which I have found to be the sweet spot for kegged beer), I installed a Johnson Controls analog temperature controller. This controller is great because it is accurate and it does not require any electrical rewiring.






Here you can see the whole setup. I've got the CO2 tank connected to a dual-gauge CO2 regulator, which feeds into the 4-way gas manifold, which then charges the kegs. The keg on the right is connected to the faucet, and you can see how I have all of the beer line coiled around the top of the keg. Even after "balancing" my system, I was initially having foaming problems. After asking around on some forums, I was advised to use 10 feet of beer line instead of the 5 feet I was using. I simply coil all of the slack around the top of the keg, and now I have no more foaming problems!






Here's a view of the inside of the door with 4 taps hooked up:







Want a kegerator, but don't want to go through the effort of building one? Then check out these links:

A quote to brew by...

Wiser words are seldom spoken:
"In life, patience is a virtue; in brewing, it is a requirement." - haerbob3 from the Mr. Beer forums.