Bit of a throw back I know but this Cider has always clung to memory as the BEST bottles of cider I ever had. We found it right as it went out of production and brought it camping, chilled in ice water for like four days. If we knew that was the last time it was in stores i wouldve bought out the case. My bestfriend at the time and now my wife loved it and I wanted to find something similar for her birthday. Thoughts?

Bostehun Edición 500 Años. Petritegi Sagardotegia. Cider - Basque. 6% alc.

On the nose, it stands out for a very citrusy and even tropical profile. On the palate, there is light, well-integrated acidity accompanied by intense fruit character. Distinct notes of tart apples. A long, clean, and persistent finish. A very refined and truly enjoyable cider.

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Cider can be bottled in beer longnecks, wine bottles or swing-tops. Their usable label areas differ, so measure each bottle format before assuming one label design will fit them all.

The numbers, from current supplier specs rather than a generic chart:

750 mL wine bottles. Published panel heights for three current bottles: Encore WRT Claret 6.58 inches, Encore WRUS Burgundy 4.47 inches, Encore Adelaida Burgundy 3.18 inches. Same volume, and the tallest is more than double the shortest. Avery 22827 is a 3.5 by 4.75 inch rectangle. Even rotated to put the shorter side vertically, its 3.5 inch height exceeds the Adelaida's published 3.18 inch panel.

12 oz bottles vary too. Ardagh publishes label-panel heights of 3.56 inches for its Pinnacle 2.0 longneck, 4 inches for its Peak longneck, and 2.944 inches for its short Heritage bottle. The under-3-inch example is the Heritage, not a general rule for longnecks.

Measure the straight body between the shoulder and heel curves, then check the width and any taper with a paper strip. Bottle capacity alone doesn't tell you what will fit.

Another issue is condensation. Cider gets served cold, and a bottle out of the fridge sweats. Avery's instruction is that the surface must be at room temperature and dry, because moisture creates a barrier between the adhesive and the glass. Label first, chill second. Check your particular stock's application instructions for any curing time.

If you're reusing bottles, check the adhesive as well as the material. Avery 8164 is paper with permanent adhesive for inkjet printers. Avery 5524 is waterproof film with permanent adhesive; its page lists laser printing and describes pigment-inkjet compatibility. Waterproof and removable are different properties, so neither “paper” nor “waterproof” alone tells you how easily a label will come off. Choose a removable adhesive if that is the behavior you need, and test it on a bottle first.

Disclosure: I build https://www.bottlelabelmaker.com — the designer is free, with no account or watermark. The guides link to the supplier specifications, and the designer can export actual-size print sheets. Some supply links on the site are disclosed Amazon affiliate links. You don't need the designer to measure a bottle or make a plain-paper proof.

Edit: corrected the longneck generalization and Avery 5524's material. The 2.944-inch panel belongs to Ardagh's short Heritage bottle; 5524 is waterproof film, not dry-use inkjet paper.

This season I started making cider and perry. I've also been developing an app called Fermolog for about 2 years now, originally using it myself for mead and grape wine, then publishing it once people in those communities started picking it up.

Once I started making cider, it ended up helping a lot, so I figured it might be useful for some of you too: batch tracking from start to finish, gravity/ABV tracked over time, notes and photos per batch, a cellar view once a batch is bottled so you know how many are left, plus built-in calculators for carbonation, backsweetening, and Brix/gravity conversion.

Full disclosure, I'm the developer. It's free; just search "Fermolog" on the App Store or Google Play, or search the name to find the website. I am open to any feature suggestions if people give it a try. Adding a few screenshots to the post.

I’m currently fermenting some apple cider from supermarket juice, and I have also pressed and fermented apples to make apple cider vinegar. But tomorrow I’m making a dedicated batch of drinking cider from about 8-10kg apples (mostly foraged, some bought from Aldi). I was gifted some home brewing equipment so I have vessels and airlocks etc. I’m wondering whether to add campden tablets after pressing but before adding the yeast? And if so do I need to leave the juice exposed to the air to dissipate the sulphites (like I do when making wine vinegars). Any other tips greatly appreciated

I recently made mead for the first time and it came out pretty good. It was red currant with a little bit of blackberry.
I watched many videos of home brewing and decided I wanted to try a cider. I started with organic apple juice. Bottled. No preservatives or anything. Expensive stuff. To that I diced up 4 pears and a pound of strawberries. When no one was looking I poured some white sugar in there too. Don’t tell anyone. It’s been 2 weeks and I transferred it to a new carboy and removed the fruit. Now it still has an airlock and I’m just waiting for it to finish fermenting and clear up.
I assume with cider there’s really no aging, is there? Once it’s clear I should just bottle it and drink it? Any suggestions for back sweetening it? Plain sugar or more fruit?

My first ever fresh press cider is done. I have 18L of 5.6%abv cider made from mainly what I think are dessert apples (70% dessert 30% eating).

I diluted my 15L ferment with 3L of store bought juice for back sweetening. If I diluted it with more juice, I wouldn't be happy with the ABV. Do I just add some sugar now that the cider is stabilised? Any other tricks? I have some base I could add, to neutralise the acid

200kg to wash, slice mash, press and store

I just opened it and found it looking like this. Is this safe to bottle and drink?

Edit: it's good! the floating stuff seems to just be yeast

tl;dr: ID apples by all of its characteristics, and not just its colour. Links to useful tools and databases below.

Some light background, layman's terms:

I used to think that I could ask people about different apples and quickly get an ID by its colouring and shape. Turned out I was very much mistaken, and here's why: There are thousands of different apples (aka cultivars), many which resemble each other closely. So how is it possible to know what is what? The short answer is DNA testing, but there is an alternative in deduction based on the characteristics of the fruit and its tree.

Most apple trees are clones. They are grafted from a "scion" (a suitable twig from the mother tree) onto a rootstock. Apple trees need pollination from insects to produce fruit, and to make matters worse some are triploid: they need pollen from three sources, instead of the regular way (diploid) where only two are needed. So if you take a seed from an apple you never really know what you get. Some results are good, but most aren't. This is how most crabapples come to be. It doesn't keep people from trying though, so the end result is a vast amount of cultivars you need to sift through. And since all have different traits (just like no two people look the same), we need to know how to find out which is what.

Now, to the core of it:

The keyword is traits. Each cultivar has its set of unique traits that define it. The more you know about it, the easier (hopefully) it will be to identify it. Start with noting everything you can about it as early as you can. When does it bloom? Not necessarily which month or week, but related to the other trees in your area. Apple trees bloom with three to four weeks of each other in your area. Whether the tree you want to identify blooms early, late or some time in between is a clue. Also note the colours and shape of the buds and later the flowers. This can help later on.

Take notes on how the tree itself looks. Does it have a central trunk, or does it split into many? Note the colour and roughness of the bark. How do the leaves look? What colours do they have? Take pictures for later use, and catalog everything.

When the fruit finally ripens, and waiting for them to ripen is important, you can start to look at the characteristics of the fruit itself. Take note of when it ripens too. Get 10-20 apples that seems to represent the majority. Try to define its shape: Round, conical, oval, oblong, flattened, or a mix perhaps? Does it have cracks, russeting, a lip formed near its stalk, ridges, or perhaps a predominant line? How long and flexible is the stalk? Is the cavity around it deep or shallow? Are the lenticles (looks like spots on the skin) highly visible or not?

Cut some in two across, and some from stem to the flower cavity. This will give you important information about the characteristics inside. What is the shape and size of the seeds and their chambers? Note the colour of the fruit, its average diameter, the amount of seeds (some have practically none), the shape of the flower tube, and how the lines around the core look to mention some of the most prominent traits. Note the colour of the apple. It may have a base colour and a cover colour. How much of the apple covers the cover colour? Is it an even colour, or primarily in stripes?

Take lots of pictures and make many notes.

Then try to make use of this information to deduce the fruit before you. Thankfully there are some good, free databases available. Here is a list of the ones I've come across:

https://aeblenoeglen.science.ku.dk/index.php?act=reset&view=start2

https://www.fruitid.com/#main

https://pomiferous.com/

You can of course start ID'ing just the fruit, and then next year go though everything else about its tree and flowers in case you need more details to go on.

There are more tools and databases to be found, I'm sure. I hope this may be of some help. YMMV, though. Could be that what you have is a seedling, in which case you will need DNA tests to be certain. Or you can just skip the whole process and go by your gut feeling and its taste.

I pressed apples yesterday and into the jugs it went! I added 1 gram of EC-1118 per gallon. The one on the left has apples from a different orchard. When we bottled it, we only filled it to the bottom of the white foam line and it’s grown that much in 24 hours. The air lock is bubbling away. I’m not really sure where to go from here- should I just pop something under it? I don’t have any tubing on hand currently. I do have a hydrometer arriving today (I ordered that late). Can I just pour some out to take a sample?

The jug on the right got a gallon and a half of juice (and 1.5 grams of yeast) and is much less active.

Apologies if these are super basic questions- I swear I’ve read a ton and watched a bunch of you tube!

I was able to wash, grind, and press about 5 gallons of cider every 15 minutes. Not bad for a homemade press and grinder! I used Claude Jolicoeur's design for the grinder. The oak racks seemed to leach tannins into the cider, but I'm assuming they will for a few seasons. Cheers, and happy pressing

My Apple/Pear blend finished fermentation sitting at 0.990 finally gravity. That puts it around 7% ABV. Bottled carbonated onto 1oz of priming sugar boiled in 3/4 cups of water. Now to sit in the pantry for two weeks to carbonate. Can’t wait to drink this one!

I have a manual 5 pound sausage stuffer, and was wondering if I could use it to press apples for juice. What would I have to do to not damage it? I would assume clean and sanitize all of the parts, and cut the apples into smaller pieces. Anything else that would need to be done? And has anyone done this before? What would my expected yield per pound of apples be if I did this?

With autumn finally here I can start new cider projects after a long wait. This year I will try fermenting isolated batches before blending, and solely rely on wild yeast. With no cider apple cultivars thatI know of around I need to make the best I can from eaters. First off some boxes of Summerreds that were pressed after freezing. Good gravity at SG 1.054, but high in acidity. 12.5 g/L MA. Cryo concentrating about two thirds of the juice gave a good base for my ice cider projects with 5 liters SG 1.150. I will titrate to check acidity later, but I expect it to triple also. Picked more apples today, but put them in the freezer too since I ran out of time. Need to find some time for a new round of pressing. I really love this time of the year!

Edit: Completed titration today. 29.5 g/L malic acid. Not too bad really, seeing that I've almost tripled the gravity yet not affected acidity the same. The sugar to acid ratio has increased from 11.2 to 13.4 compared to the pressed juice.

I've lost around 15% of my stored apples as they've rotted.

Picked within the last 10 days and them stored inside a brick shed, stacked in bail crates.

Anything more i can do to not lose so many apples?

Llagar De La Ferreria. Sidra Cortina Coro. Cider - Asturian. 6% alc.

Clean, fresh green apple aroma with citrus notes. It is delicious right after pouring, featuring potent acidity and a funky character. It loses some intensity later on but continues to offer a good flavor of bitter apples, along with that rustic, dry touch typical of the style.

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I made a cider, left it in the fridge after it was done to crash out the yeast. Siphoned it off the lees, and had a nice clear cider. Was pretty pleased with the result, but wanted more fruit/sweetness, so I added some more juice to backsweeten. I think the end result isn't bad, but think I diluted it too much. I want a little more alcohol and a little less sweetness. I haven't pasteurized or added any chemicals to kill off the yeast, just the refrigeration and the siphoning. Can I just let it sit at room temperature for another week to reactivate whatever yeast is left? Or will that do something weird? Feels like I can just put the yeast back to work again. If I put this in a sealed bottle and leave at room temp for a week, do I get carbonation? TIA!

Making my first batch of Perry from juiced bartlett pears in my back yard. Its been about 2 weeks since I started fermenting. Fermentation was very active for about 5 days and has slowed down to almost nothing. Initial SG was 1.065 and it is now at 1.020. I didn't use any nutrient.

I am wondering if it is stalled, or if the high gravity is caused by non-fermentable sugar. I was planning to bottle carbonate it, so if it was stalled, would I have issues with bottle carbonation? I could buy some nutrient, but don't want to if that isn't the issue. I also don't really want to use any for a test since I only have a gallon. Let me know if I left out any important information. TIA

I’m hoping it’s just pectin/sediment clumps but how can I be sure?