Start with the fruit, not the fermenter

Good cider is made in the orchard long before it reaches the press. The single biggest mistake home cider-makers make is treating cider as a way of using up windfalls and cookers. It will ferment, certainly, but the result is usually thin, sharp and forgettable. Traditional cider needs a blend that balances sugar, acid and — crucially — tannin.

If you can get hold of true cider apples, you are already ahead. Look for bittersweet and bittersharp varieties: Dabinett, Yarlington Mill, Kingston Black, Michelin, Brown Snout, Tremlett's Bitter and Foxwhelp all grow well across the cider counties and most of the UK. A rough rule of thumb for a balanced blend is around 50–60 per cent bittersweet, 20–30 per cent sharp (cookers such as Bramley work beautifully), and the rest sweet or aromatic dessert fruit for perfume.

If cider apples are out of reach, you can still make something with character. Use a base of ripe dessert apples and add up to 10 per cent crab apples for tannin and bite. Crab apples are the secret weapon of many a small-scale maker: they contribute the grippy, drying quality that gives cider its backbone. Leave the fruit to sweat in a cool, dry shed for a week or two after picking; this softens the flesh, improves juice yield and lets some of the starch convert to sugar.

Milling, pressing and getting the juice out

You need two things: something to crush the apples and something to squeeze them. A dedicated scratter or pulper is ideal, but a strong food processor, a clean builder's bucket and plenty of patience will do at a push. Aim for a pulp the texture of coarse porridge — too fine and it turns to mush that clogs the press, too coarse and you leave half the juice behind.

For pressing, a traditional rack-and-cloth press is the benchmark. Build a "cheese": a square of food-grade cloth or nylon mesh, a 5–8 cm layer of pulp, folded over, then another cloth on top, and repeat until you have four or five layers. Press slowly and steadily. Rushing it forces pulp through the cloth and clouds the juice.

Expect roughly 600–700 ml of juice per kilogram of apples. A healthy tree can easily give 50–70 kg of fruit, so a modest back garden can produce 30 litres or more without much trouble. Let the juice stand in a clean fermenting bin for a few hours, then siphon off the clear liquid from the sediment — this "settling" step saves you a lot of grief later. Adding a dose of pectic enzyme at this stage helps the solids drop and improves the final clarity.

Measuring before you ferment

Take a hydrometer reading. Most apple juice sits somewhere between 1.040 and 1.055. That will ferment out to a dry cider of around 5.5–7 per cent alcohol, which is exactly where traditional cider should be. If you are well below 1.040, add a little sugar or concentrated apple juice; if you are above 1.060, either dilute slightly or accept a stronger drink.

Taste the juice. If it is flabby and sweet, add acid — a teaspoon or two of malic acid per 5 litres, or the juice of a lemon. If it strips the enamel off your teeth, blend in some sweeter juice. If it tastes thin and watery, you needed more crab apples. Fix it now rather than hoping fermentation will work magic.

If you want a reliable, predictable fermentation, add one crushed Campden tablet per 4.5 litres of juice, leave it 24 hours, then pitch a commercial cider yeast. If you would rather embrace the wild yeasts on the fruit skin, skip the sulphite and simply cover the bin with a clean cloth. Wild ferments are slower and riskier, but they often deliver complexity you cannot buy.

The fermentation itself

Fit an airlock once the vigorous initial phase settles, and keep the bin somewhere between 15°C and 20°C. Cooler ferments — 12–15°C — run more slowly but retain more aroma. Warmth drives fermentation fast and blows off the delicate apple character you worked so hard to capture.

Primary fermentation takes two to four weeks. Watch the hydrometer rather than the calendar. When it reads 1.000 or slightly below, the sugar is gone and the cider is dry. Some makers then encourage a malolactic fermentation, which converts harsh malic acid into softer lactic acid; leaving the cider on the lees in a cool place for a few weeks often achieves this naturally and rounds off the sharp edges.

Racking, maturing and bottling

Rack the cider off the lees into a clean, sterilised vessel, leaving the sediment behind. Top up to minimise headspace and air contact. Then — and this is the part impatient makers skip — leave it alone for three to six months. Cider that tastes rough in November is often genuinely good by March. A cool garage or shed is perfect.

Rack once or twice more during maturation if sediment builds up. For a still cider, bottle when it tastes right, ideally with a small dose of sulphite to protect it. For a sparkling cider, prime with around 5–6 g of sugar per litre, bottle in strong pressure-rated bottles, and leave somewhere warm for two weeks before moving it somewhere cool. Check one bottle after a fortnight to gauge the pressure.

Keeping it clean and learning your orchard

• Sterilise everything that touches the juice — bins, spoons, tubing, bottles. Vinegar and acetobacter ruin more cider than bad yeast ever will.
• Keep air out after fermentation begins. Oxidation turns cider brown and dull.
• Record your blend every year: variety, proportions, gravity, yeast, dates. Your best cider will come from repeating and adjusting a recipe, not from luck.
• Plant a tree or two. A Dabinett or Kingston Black on a semi-vigorous rootstock will crop within five or six years and give you fruit you simply cannot buy.

Cider-making rewards patience and observation far more than equipment. Press carefully, ferment cool, mature longer than feels reasonable, and you will end up with something dry, refreshing and full of the character of your own trees.