It's apple season, also known as cider season. I've made cider a couple of times but not for many years. We have a small apple tree at the bottom of the garden which produces many small apples every year. We usually eat a few of them, but the first wintery storm will scatter them all over the place, bruising them all. No bad thing, the birds pick at them over the winter.

Alternatively, I could collect them up and make them into cider. I'm not really sure what finally motivated me to do it. It'd been on my mind for a couple of weeks. One Sunday I just went out and collected a bucket load, literally. Some of the pristine ones were kept for eating, but almost all of them were 'cider grade'.

They were given a quick wash to remove the worst of the grime. I didn't have a proper apple scratter, so the food processor stepped up to the job, they were roughly chopped and chucked in, core, stork, seeds, everything. It was a bit slow, but okay for a small batch.

The next stage was to press the pulp to extract the juice. I didn't have a fruit press, I'd made one many years ago from bits of 2x4 and a hydraulic carjack. Instead, I made do with a tea-towel and some elbow grease.

This was probably the least efficient part of the process; I think I left a lot of juice behind partly because I couldn't get the force required by hand and partly because I quickly got tired of it.

I got about 2.5 L of juice from a 10 L bucket of apples. I put all the juice into a large pot and brought it to the boil. This was a mistake. I only did this because I vaguely remember that was what I did last time. Now that it had been boiled, I needed to add packet yeast and keep everything sterile to make sure that rouge microbes didn't get in and ruin it all.

Next time I'll just decant the juice straight into the demijohn, no need for special handling or adding yeast. That's what's done traditionally.

The specific gravity was measured to be 1.060. Keeping note of this will allow me to measure the final ABV.

Mmmmm delicious.... This is 2 days in, it's very lively!

The foam disappeared the next day, and it continued to bubble away for about 10 days. After the bubbling stopped, I measured the specific gravity twice more, a couple of days apart. The number didn't change, which told me the fermentation was done.

The final specific gravity reading was 0.996, this equates to an ABV of about 8.4%.

I bottled it into 4x 500 ml flip-top glass bottles, I like the look of them. I also like that I don't have to deal with corks, caps or the risk of explosion. There was a small glass left over which I had to 'dispose' of 😁.

I was really pleased with it, there were no off flavours, and it wasn't too strong, too sweet or too dry. It had a very light fizz, it was delicious. It reminded me of Henry Westons ciders, stronger and drier but still some sweetness.

I'll let it settle in the bottles now, it's already started clearing. I expect it to remain cloudy due to pectin, but I'm okay with that.

When I do this again, I'll get a small press, in fact, I've already ordered one. I don't have any more of my own apples, but there are still literal boxes of them outside our neighbours' houses.