How to Make Instant Pot Apple Cider Recipe (2024)

FAQs

Can you make cider with just cooking apples? ›

As a rough guide, 20lb of apples will give you 1 gallon of apple juice for you to make cider. You can make cider from pretty much any variety of apple. They could be cookers, eaters or a blend of many different types.

How many apples does it take to make a gallon of cider? - It will take just a little over a peck or 36-42 medium apples to make just one gallon of cider.

The process for making apple cider and spiced apple cider is the same. The main difference is that spiced apple cider is, well, spiced! It typically has been infused with flavors of different warm spices (like cinnamon, clove, and nutmeg) versus regular apple cider which gets its flavor solely from the apples.

The apple varieties that we generally find in stores and that are used for the making of modern-style ciders include McIntosh, Golden and Red Delicious, Goldrush, Honeycrisp, Cortland, Idared, Jonagold, Granny Smith, Gala, and Fuji.

Fresh apple cider doesn't contain alcohol. It's possible for unpasteurized cider to ferment over time and become alcoholic, creating hard apple cider. If you don't want your cider to become alcoholic, then it's best to drink it within two weeks of making it.

Natural yeast in the juice will ferment the sugar to alcohol. Yeast need not be added, although it can without any problem. Some fermentation processes call for killing all the yeast in the pure cider with sulfur dioxide, waiting 24 hours and then adding wine yeast. For the homeowner this is not necessary.

If you don't add any sugar to the cider, it will yield hard cider that is approximately 6.0 – 6.5% ABV, which is already a bit higher than most store-bought hard cider. If you want to increase the alcohol content, you will need to add sugar prior to fermentation.

In general, you'll want to pick the least filtered product you can find. It will either be very cloudy (little bits of apple in suspension in the juice) or have lots of sediment at the bottom (apple bits are not suspended).

A gallon of fresh apple cider at Walmart is about $4/gallon. I used about $2.50 worth of fruit and a few cents worth of spices to get 48oz. If we say it cost a total of $2.75 to make this batch of 48oz, that would come out to $7.15/gallon.

There are others; Clos De Bois, for an aromatic sip, or CL-23, for a clean, crisp cider. Any beer yeast will also create apple cider, however, some are much better than others. One of our favorites is the Safale US-05, which is a yeast commonly used to make pale ales and IPAs. It has a crisp, clean flavor.

Is apple cider better for you than apple juice? ›

Cider contains more of apples' polyphenol compounds than clear commercial apple juice. Fresh cider from cider apples may contain from two to four times the amount of these healthful compounds compared to clear commercial apple juice because of the apple varieties used and the extra processing to make clear juice.

As it's not filtered, the drink does keep some of its pectin content. Pectin is a soluble fiber that can keep you regular. Apple cider can also help to relax your intestines, which can help create a healthier digestive system and alleviate symptoms of irritable bowel syndrome.

On the other hand, apple cider is often less processed, preserving more of the natural flavors and allowing for a more authentic apple taste. 4. The Role of Pulp and Solids: Apple cider often retains more pulp and solids compared to apple juice.

When it comes to cider you can use any apples but you'll get varying degrees of quality. The main apple varieties used in cider making are… Bittersweets – These can vary from full bittersweet to mild bittersweet, with a full bittersweet generally being too tannic (bitter) to use as a single variety cider.

Food processor, high-powered blender, or something else capable of producing apples puree. Cheesecloth, preferably lots of it (though it's possible that a sieve would also work- or maybe coffee filters?).

You do not need to core them. It is all but impossible to squeeze juice out of quartered apples so they need to be crushed into a coarse pulp first. Usually this is done by pounding them with a large pole in a bucket (food grade plastic or stainless steel) though there are other methods involving extra kit.

Indeed, cider can be produced from any apple variety. However, traditionally, there has been a distinction between cider and dessert apples.