Making your own hooch.

[Arm0r]

I am going to try very soon to make my own hard apple cider, I am going to be using the method on this site.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-10-01/How-to-Make-Hard-Cider.aspx?page=2

anyone with experience with this kind of thing?

[adz1La]

cue foc

[peewee_RotA]

Randomly found this site one day:

http://www.homebrew.net/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

It's a wiki that has beermaking guides.. as well as "homebrew" Role Playing systems.... Clever.

[Arm0r]

I think the stuff I tried out that foc lined out for me as a bit different.

[haunted]

peaches in a barrel

[|iR|Focalor]

I am going to try very soon to make my own hard apple cider, I am going to be using the method on this site.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Real-Food/2007-10-01/How-to-Make-Hard-Cider.aspx?page=2

anyone with experience with this kind of thing?

WHOA WHOA WHOA! You DO NOT put fucking bleach into the container you are going to be fermenting. Sure, bleach kills mold and the like, but I don't think you really wanna be drinking out of something that had bleach in it at any point. For fucks sake, if you're gonna use a fermenting container that would need bleach poured into it to kill any mold and shit in it, then go find something else that's already clean and ready to use instead. I'm not 100% sure (since I'm not dumb enough to put bleach anywhere near my wine), but I would also suspect that trace amounts of bleach might kill the yeast you'd use for fermenting it.

If you want a decent cheap fermenting container, a gallon milk jug is always the cheapest and easiest solution. After you finish off the last of the milk, just run some scalding hot water from the tap in it a few times, screw the cap on, shake the shit out of it to rinse all the milk out. Milk jugs are already pretty sterile considering dairy products go in them and they sterilize them BEFORE the milk goes in. As long as you wash it out immediately and don't close it back up and let it sit long enough for the water left inside to grow molds, you're good.

I haven't tried making hard apple cider, but it's pretty much the same principle with anything you ferment. You start with an all natural fresh fruit juice, add a little extra sugar, add some yeast, let it ferment long enough, and it's alcoholic. If you're really going to get into it though, I'd suggest finding a good way to filter the "mash" once it's done fermenting. Having a little fruit pulp in the fermenting mix isn't a problem for fermenting, but even if you think you have NO pulp in it, you'll get some sludge in the bottom once it's fermented. Some cheese cloth would probably work best. Coffee filters won't work. The sludge will always be so thick that you will only get about 1/2 an oz of liquid through it before it's useless and its all gunked up, it's just not porous enough.

What I usually do is just siphon the clearer cleaner liquid from the top of the container and toss out the bottom 1/4 to 1/8 gallon. That's a little wasteful so I wouldn't recommend it, but if you don't want to fool with filtering it so much and you have several gallons, then it's saves a little time and energy.

The best advice I would give you though is to have a properly working airlock for each container. The old method I suggested of just leaving the cap partially screwed on enough to let pressure build and force the carbon dioxide out... yeah, not really a swell idea. When you let that carbon dioxide sit pressurized on the batch for longer periods, it makes the wine smell really bad. Theres a couple other cheap redneck ways to do it without going to a winemaking store and buying a fermenting bucket with an airlock.

1. The balloon airlock. Maybe you've seen this trick before. You just take a regular round latex balloon, take a sewing needle, poke a few holes in the balloon. Then when you get the batch in the jug and ready to ferment, slip the mouth of the balloon over the mouth of the jug and use some strong clear packing tape or something to make sure it won't go flying off the jug. The balloon will fill up and the tiny holes in it will allow the air seep out without allowing air to come back in.

2. The water lock/aka the "bong" method. Drill out a hole in the center of the milk jug cap. Get a rubber O-ring of some type to stuff the hole with. Then stick some brand new clear aquarium tubing down into it. Make sure the O-ring and the tube going into it is not leaking. Maybe blow through the other end once you have it in there and see if theres air coming out of some small hole you didn't see around the O-ring. Chances are you'll probably be able to SEE any gaps that air could come through before even doing that though. And make sure the hose going into the jug is well above the liquid level, you wanna drain off the GAS, not the LIQUID, duh. Then stick the other end of the hose down into a nice tall glass of water and use tape or something around the hose and the glass to make sure the hose doesn't slip out of the water when you aren't around. When it starts fermenting, you should notice little air bubbles coming out of the hose every so often.

It should typically take about 2-3 weeks for a gallon of fruit mash to ferment well. After that, it really isn't going to produce much more alcohol.

But like I said, make sure the batch can blow off the gas. Don't let that carbon dioxide sit pressurized on it or it will smell and taste like an armpits asshole.