Hi folks! Im on my second year of cider making and having a blast doing it. My first year I made and bottled hard cider in 12 oz bottles using two different yeasts as an experiment. Did all the normal things and tried bottle carbonating and it turned out great. The only feedback I got back was that folks didnt love the leftover yeast from bottle carbonating that was leftover in the bottles. So this year I bottled in champagne bottles, bottle carbonated, added Bentonite to half the bottles (I wanted to see how much of a difference it made), and Im in the process of riddling the bottles now to disgorge them at the end of April. Im building a homemade neck freezer (not sire if thats what its called) for this process which Im excited about.
This all said - my long term goal is to make cider commercially on a small scale. We’re in the process of planting a small scale orchard (likely in total less than 5 acres) and we’d like to make cider with the bulk of the apples. I’ve been reading a lot of books and enjoying experimenting with the juice we have now (the current trees we have give us about 10 gallons a year and I get about 5 of that to play with (the kids love drinking the rest )) - but Im wondering if anyone else has been on a similar journey. Im going to reach out to a couple of local cideries soon and ask about helping out in the orchard and in the ciderhouse to get some more experience - but are there other things I should be doing or experimenting with? Im grafting all of the trees for our orchard so we’re a few years out from having a substantial yield but Im also thinking about buying some fruit to press this year to increase the juice I have to experiment with. The current cider Im making is dry so I might experiment with back sweetening some of what I bottle this year.
Just curious if anyone else has started from scratch and been headed in his direction. If so - any guidance folks have would be appreciated! Im really interested in things we can do to make things more “commercial”. What I mean by that is that if there are things beyond normal hydrometer testing to help ensure a consistent product. Our goal is start small and make one or two ciders that we can make reliably to sell and then start experimenting from there to add on to it.
I know I have a long way to go on this journey but just looking for some advice from folks who have gone from hobby to commercial if there are things I should be looking at sooner rather than later. Thanks as always!
I made my first ciders this year. I find to get less sediment it helps to rack after it starts clearing up. Then rack again when you go to bottle. You can cold crash a couple days to drop more sediment out also.
Lately I’ve been playing with back sweetening with frozen apple juice concentrate, let it carbonate and then bottle pasturize. The backsweetened product has more mass appeal when shared.
Oh interesting - so you’ve been pasteurizing - that’s something I havent played with yet. Am I correct in saying that you have to sort of time that to let it carbonate just enough but not too much before pasteurization?
I’m a newbie to cider too so remember that when reading my cider posts lol.
It is a bit of a guessing game. When you bottle you also fill a plastic soda bottle. Then you squeeze test the soda bottle to see when it’s getting firm. Usually 3-5 days. I should have left my last batch a little longer as it isn’t very fizzy but I have 2 more gallons going that I’ll try again.
I’d like to try an RO system to concentrate my own cider to add back in instead of buyjng frozen stuff
I have no intention of making cider commercially but I’ve made both mead (6 years) and cider (3 years) for home use. At this point I’d say that the mead is a high quality product, whereas the cider is good but not perfect. So far I have made only totally dry products (no unfermented sugar, not fizzy). Re the cider, there are no major defects related to fermentation but I haven’t yet perfected the blends.
That’s all background for a comment. Bentonite, which is comprised of negatively charged particles, seems inappropriate to remove yeast particles, which are also negatively charged. On the other hand, Sparkolloid (or similar), which is positively charged, seems right. Last autumn I used only Sparkalloid (and time) to produce a perfectly clear cider.
If you haven’t already purchased Claude Jolicoeur’s books, I highly recommend them—they’re the most comprehensive resources I’ve found on cider making. Conical fermenters make things much easier, and a proper bottle filler (not just a siphon wand) helps a lot as well. If you don’t already have one, consider getting a tabletop corker—I use a Ferrari and love it. I’d rather have the car, but the corker is pretty sweet too. Handheld corkers can get pretty tiring if you have a lot to do. If you can swing it, a fermenter with CIP for cleaning and a jacket for temperature control is great—but you can absolutely make excellent cider without those features.
If you’re anywhere near the Finger Lakes or another top cider region, go talk to the cider makers. Most are happy to chat with fellow enthusiasts—just try to avoid the busy season—and you’ll pick up plenty of useful tips. It’s also worth trying a wide range of ciders across different styles. Some European ones can be very different from what you might expect. Two of my personal favorites are Eve’s and Farnum Hill—both American producers.
That’s all stuff you probably already know, but if you have any specific questions about cider making or the business side, I may be able to help. I’ve been making cider, fruit wines, and liqueurs for close to two decades. I’ve never made cider commercially—but not for lack of trying. A couple of years ago, a friend of mine—an importer/distributor—and I were involved in an attempt to acquire a company in the cider industry. After our lowball offer was rejected, we explored having cider made to our specifications on contract. We found several willing producers, and everything looked promising—until we saw the cost of sourcing high-quality apples or juice.
I was interested in producing single-varietal ciders in large-format bottles, but the numbers didn’t work unless we bought an orchard—something we weren’t prepared to do. That experience is what got me into fruit growing and ultimately led me here. One day, I’ll have my own orchard large enough to produce all the cider I want to make.
If you ever need a taste tester—or have any specific questions—feel free to reach out!
Thanks for the detailed reply! I do own one of Claude’s books which Im working my way through but I’ll admit a lot of it is over my head at this point. I like the idea of getting a canonical fermenter. Im not familiar with CIP yet but it looks like a nice 8-16 gallon stainless steel canonical fermenter can be had for less than I thought (around $300?).
I’ve settled on bottle caps for now and we bought a bench mounted capper that works great. Maybe I’ll look into corking later but the capping seemed easier for us at this point.
Im totally going to start reading out to local cideries. There are two local to me that seem smaller and also a winery that I’d like to talk to the folks at. We’re in the midwest - but going to the finger lakes region is on my bucket list for sure though!
One area I’d really like to dive into to try and make things more repeatable is testing. Do you have any thoughts on where to start for things like PH testing? Im fine using a hydrometer for now to test for gravity but I am at this point not doing any PH testing. It really seems like you can go all over the place with that - test strips or meters etc.
It’s definitely worth paying attention to pH for consistency—especially for fermentation performance and stability—but it won’t tell you the whole story when it comes to how your cider actually tastes. You can hit the exact same pH in multiple batches and still end up with noticeably different results in the glass. That’s because pH measures the strength of acidity, not the amount of acid present.
If your goal is a more consistent finished product, you’ll want to start tracking titratable acidity (TA) alongside pH. TA is what really drives perceived tartness, structure, and balance. Two ciders at the same pH can taste very different if one has significantly higher TA. By measuring and adjusting TA—usually with blending or malic acid additions—you can dial in a much more repeatable flavor profile from batch to batch, rather than just matching numbers that don’t fully correlate with taste. An acid test kit typically costs around $10 and is well worth it for the control it gives you.
It’s also important to keep in mind that acidity isn’t static—if you age your cider and it goes through malolactic fermentation, the acid profile will change over time. Sharper malic acid is converted into softer lactic acid, which can lower TA slightly and raise pH, but more importantly shifts the perception of acidity. Keeping records of both pH and TA before and after fermentation and aging will make it much easier to consistently hit the balance you’re after.
Get a second fridge from marketplace. Set it for 8-12 degrees C. Get some 1 gallon water bottles and fill with your fresh pressed cider. Put in the fridge. Let sit for months. When they ballon up start releasing the cap every 5-6 days until they stop doing that or you measure the SG below 1.08. Bottle in 1L swing top beer bottles and keep in fridge. Pop the swing top over a sink every once and a while until carbonation slows down.
Slow,cold, wild ferments are at least 2-3x better than any cultured yeast I have tried.
I now use 5 gallon big mouth fermenters (can fit 2 in bottom of fridge) but the 1 gallon let you experiment with single variables and the like.
To date, Ive only bottle conditioned. I use 22 oz bottles, and find I can get about 20 oz out before it gets a little cloudy. Ive found Lalvin D47 yeast forms a pretty compact layer on the bottom of the bottle (plus just a great yeast for cider).
Another option would be to get a 5 gallon corny keg, rack your clear cider into that then force carbonate it with a cylinder of CO2. They make systems that allow you to then fill a bottle while filled with co2 and under pressure so it doesnt foam up. Looking into doing this with my beer.
I got hooked on making cider a few years ago. Made about 100 gallons last year. I’m not a definitive expert. But here’s some things I’ve learned to make consistently better cider.
I now track TA very closely. If it’s too low, you can add malic acid or use more sharps. If TA is too high, you can adjust yeast choice to one that consumes malic acid. If you see a big drop in TA, that’s a clue that your cider may have undergone MLF (you can also buy MLF chromatrophy kits). I measure TA often enough that I use a 50 mL burette and buy 0.1 M NaOH one liter at a time from Amazon. Don’t forget to de-gas prior to TA measurement. I microwave 10 mL for 10 seconds and then shake a little more.
I’ve made batches with sulfites and without sulfites. I’ve had a few batches go through MLF which I did not want for that style and now use them judiciously most of the time. My wild ferments with low dose sulfite turned out less funky than those without it.
I now ferment in chest freezers temp controlled with a rainbird thermometer. Can keep fermentations in the 50’s or even lower this way.
Most of my ciders are bottle conditioned. I just pour off the settled yeast into a glass to drink.
If you want to see what cider experts think about your current cider, you have a few weeks left to register them and mail in to GLINTCAP. You get nice detailed feedback from judges. They’ve pointed out flaws with some of my ciders which I couldn’t quite figure out, which was helpful. Or you could win best in class!
I read this forum a lot. For cider specifically, Cider Workshop is also a nice resource.
If the sediment in the bottles bothers you, I would look into carbonating with carbon dioxide, rather than bottle carbonation. I think with the right setup you can do this when bottling.
Yeah, counter-pressure bottle fillers work really well—they save a lot of time and produce a clean, polished finished product with no sediment. I have a keg setup like @MDL17576 mentions above, and I use it for ciders I plan to drink relatively quickly. For cider I’m going to age for a longer period, I prefer to bottle-condition—I also reserve the best juice for those batches.
There is a noticeable taste difference between the two methods (Champagne vs. Prosecco/Charmat), but unless you’re marketing a high-end cider, I’m not sure most customers would notice or that the quality difference would justify the extra time and effort required to disgorge bottles. Still, the Champagne method does produce a better-tasting result.
Love this. We are at similar stages, with the caveat that I do not want to be commercial and only have ~25 apple trees.
See the link below where I did a little experiment with 4 different yeasts and Martinelli’s apple juice. Getting ready to do a batch with back sweetening for the first time like MKling described.
What do you have equipment wise to crush and press the juice? Also, curious to hear observations on scions you tried.
)) - but Im wondering if anyone else has been on a similar journey. Im going to reach out to a couple of local cideries soon and ask about helping out in the orchard and in the ciderhouse to get some more experience - but are there other things I should be doing or experimenting with? Im grafting all of the trees for our orchard so we’re a few years out from having a substantial yield but Im also thinking about buying some fruit to press this year to increase the juice I have to experiment with. The current cider Im making is dry so I might experiment with back sweetening some of what I bottle this year.