Making hard apple cider from juice is probably one of the simplest home brewing recipes. It’s also incredibly refreshing and delicious.
Here are a few of the reasons why you should totally try making hard apple cider from juice:
- Simple: Using store-bought jugs of juice eliminates the need to sterilize equipment. Just add the ingredients, pop in a $2 airlock (affiliate link) and you’re done.
- Dry or sweet: I like really dry cider, so I let my cider keep fermenting until it is as dry as possible. If you like sweet cider, then stick it in the fridge early.
- Fun fruit flavours: Making blueberry apple cider or raspberry apple cider is easy! Just use a mix of fruit juices for a fun and flavourful cider.
- Affordable: Apple juice is much cheaper than hard apple cider. And if you’re lucky enough to have an apple tree, then using your own pressed apples means that making hard apple cider from juice is practically free!
- Sulfite free: Store-bought hard cider contains a lot of sulfites. Even if you don’t have a sulfite allergy, you may be sensitive to the load of sulfites in commercial hard cider. However, homemade cider is sulfite-free!
Newbies Start Here
If this is your first time making homemade cider or wine, then here are a few things you should know:
- This recipe can be made without added sugar or yeast nutrient, however, it won’t ferment very well, and you’ll end up with low alcohol and flat cider. Here’s a different recipe if you want to make a simple fruit juice cider without these added ingredients.
- I recommend getting a hydrometer. They are only about $20 and will help you measure the sugar levels and tell you when your cider is ready for bottling.
- Sanitizing the bottles isn’t required, however, it is the best way to prevent your cider from going off. Here’s a whole post on how to sanitize for cider and wine.
- Want more information on making cider and wine? Here’s a basic overview of everything you need to know.
Hard Apple Cider From Juice
Using store-bought apple juice is the easiest way to make hard apple cider. This simple recipe is so delicious and easy that it’s perfect for beginners. Best of all, homemade apple cider is sulfite-free!
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Total Time: 15 minutes
- Yield: 1 gallon 1x
- Category: Alcohol
- Cuisine: British
- Diet: Vegan
Ingredients
- 1-gallon jug of apple juice (see notes)
- 1/4 package white wine yeast (Lalvin EC 1118)
- 1/4 tsp yeast nutrient (affiliate links)
- 1 cup sugar (optional)
- 1/8 cup white sugar or dextrose
- 1/4 cup water
Instructions
- Be sure to sanitize anything that is going to touch the cider. If you are fermenting in a store-bought jug of apple juice, then you will only need to sanitize for racking and bottling.
- Remove 1/2 cup of juice from the jug. This will leave enough room to prevent the fermentation from bubbling over. I recommend testing the sugar content of your apple juice using a hydrometer. It needs to be at least 1.050. Feel free to add up to 1 cup of sugar, as needed. This will increase the potential alcohol content and/or sweeten the cider.
- Add the yeast and yeast nutrient. Put the cap back on the bottle of juice and give it a good shake to mix everything up.
- Remove the lid and top the bottle with an airlock.
- If you are using unfiltered apple juice, then you will need to rack the cider to a clean jug after 1 week. If you are using filtered apple juice, then racking isn’t necessary.
- Allow the cider to ferment for 2-4 weeks (1-3 weeks after racking) prior to bottling. Exactly how long you leave the cider to ferment will depend on your personal taste. If you like sweet cider, bottle it after 2 weeks. Wait 4 weeks for a dry cider.
- If there is a lot of sediment in your fermentation jug (dead yeast), then rack prior to bottling.
- To prime the carbonation, add mix the 1/8 cup of white sugar or dextrose in 1/4 cup of boiling water. Stir to dissolve the sugar. Then mix the sugar water into the cider just before bottling.
- Leave the bottled cider to ferment at room temperature for another 1-2 weeks, until it is carbonated. Store the cider in the fridge and enjoy it within 2 months. Because this recipe is a sulfite-free recipe the cider is not shelf-stable and will continue to ferment, even in the fridge. So if you like sweet cider, drink it within 1 month.
Notes
- If you are using homemade apple juice, you will need to pasteurize it to prevent contamination from wild mold, yeast and bacteria. To pasteurize the juice, bring it to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes. Then pour into the fermenting jug and allow to cool to just above room temperature before adding the yeast.
- Don’t use apple juice that contains additional sugar, preservatives or additives. All you want on the label is juice and maybe Vitamin C (ascorbic acid).
- Don’t use juice made from concentrate.
- Feel free to use juice that is a mix of apple and berries. Avoid citrus, bananas and tropical fruits which don’t ferment nicely with yeast.
- A hydrometer isn’t necessary, however, it’s the easiest way to test how much sugar is in the apple juice and when it is ready for bottling. Otherwise, you can just guestimate using the recipe.
- I like to use brown sugar, which adds a depth of flavour, however, white sugar is fine as well.
- Be sure to use bottles that can handle the buildup of carbonation. Either plastic pop bottles or flip-top beer/cider bottles. Test for carbonation by squeezing on a plastic bottle or popping open one of the flip-top bottles.
Keywords: apple cider, berry cider, fruit cider, hard, alcoholic, simple, store-bought juice, spring, summer
If I am doubling the recipe, do I need to double the amount of priming sugar? Thank you.
Yes! Otherwise you’ll have slightly flat cider. 🙂
Am trying this so far cost me £5 for stuff but hopefully get 20 bottles cider…
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Great! And I imagine that you’ll be able to reuse some of the supplies, like the airlock. Enjoy!
Every fall our grandfather drove from Michigan to our home in Texas with his station wagon loaded down with apples, dried mushrooms, honeycones from his apiary and apple cider, which apparently had started to ferment because it always had a little bite. Is it possible that it fermented on its own or must we assume he did something to make this happen?
That sounds amazing. The cider may have fermented with wild yeast, depending on your grandfather’s cleanliness. Or if he added a bit of homemade honey, then he was making apple mead. Raw honey naturally contains yeasts and bacterial culture.
I used to buy unpasturized cider in gallon milk jugs farmer direct in michigan. $1 a jug,all i did was crack the cap a lil.natural yeasts on apples fermented it just fine.
Yes! Wild yeast can definitely make hard cider. And it naturally dies off at about 4% alcohol for a sulfite-free cider!
I just began my hard cider using your recipe. It’s the second day and it’s super foamy on the top! I have a question: when I started, I added a bit of sugar to get the liquid up to 1.050 on my hydrometer. How high of alcohol percentage do you think this drink will go up to if I let it sit for 2 weeks and 4 weeks? Thanks! Super excited for this to work out! I did half your recipe with a half gallon jug of apple juice and used boiled bakers yeast as yeast nutrients.
Hi Hugh, As you probably already know, the max alcohol percentage is 6.8, however, that would be a very dry cider. I find that after 2 weeks the cider is still very sweet, so maybe 3% then it will slowly get closer to 6 % as you get to the 4-week point. However, if you can bear siphoning a bit off to test, then you can bottle it at your ideal sweetness and alcohol level. Enjoy!
Awesome! I don’t know why I didn’t think of siphoning to test it! Thank you, I look forward to it! Question: I noticed that the foam on my batch was very very foamy the first 2 days but it has slowed down quite a bit and the amount of foam dissipated. Is that normal? Also, I noticed a clumping of yellow-ish beige-ish stuff in the foam. What could this be?
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The initial foaming is normal, and it usually does slow down after the first few days. The yellow stuff could be spent yeast? If it seems excessive you could always rack it to a new bottle. Spent yeast doesn’t taste good… but if you bottle after 2 weeks, it’s probably not necessary to rack it as it won’t have as much time to flavour the cider. However, if you’re making wine, it really is necessary to rack to clean containers to remove spent yeast. I learned that lesson the hard way!
Hi after 1 week there seems to be a little mould forming on top is this a concern?
It’s more likely kahm yeast. Is it white and frost-like (versus 3D and fluffy, mold-like?) Kahm yeast is not an issue… mold is an issue. If it’s mold, I recommend scrapping the ferment. At best, removing the mold and heat pasteurizing it. You can just ignore kahm yeast which will naturally die off. Cheers, Emillie