What if even after making jams, preserves and juice, apples still have nowhere to go? Apple cider is an excellent option for recycling apples in a fruitful year, as well as a delicious low-alcohol drink.
Cider is a European drink common in France, Italy and Germany. The history of apple (and pear) cider goes back several millennia, since apples were and are the most popular fruit, eclipsing even traditional grapes. There are a lot of recipes for making apple cider: in each area they vary depending on the apple variety that grows in the region.
Ingredients
To make cider at home according to one of the most common recipes, you need a bucket of apples (8 kg). It is best to take apples when ripe, but from a branch, not a carrion, since the latter will not give a good rich taste. The variety of apples does not matter, although all winemakers agree that apples should be sour. If desired, you can immediately add candied fruits (orange or lemon peel) or spices (cloves, cinnamon) to the cider.
Recipe
Apples need to be peeled and peeled. It is now easy to remove the core with the help of special knives, which are sold at any cookware and kitchen utensil store. Next, you need to grate the gruel from the obtained apples using an electric meat grinder or a powerful blender, without removing the pulp, which helps the apple juice ferment. After that, you need to put the pan with the resulting mass for a week in a dark room and cover with a lid. Once a day, it is worth stirring the mass, preventing the pulp from floating to the surface.
After a week, the pulp should be squeezed out and removed, and the juice itself should be passed through a filter (you can in the old fashioned way, through cheesecloth). The resulting, still cloudy solution should be poured into large bottles and left for another week. Now the future cider will ferment on its own, without pulp. During this period, it is recommended to pour it from one bottle (jar) to another, every 2-3 days, so that the sediment gradually disappears.
2 weeks after the start of cooking for days of the can, a precipitate will begin to form, which must be filtered. This filtration usually takes place with a rubber or plastic hose that pumps the wine out of the can, leaving a sediment inside (the hose can be made from scrap materials, or you can buy it at a kitchen supply store or order it online). Technically, this process is called filtration and must be repeated until the sediment disappears completely. As soon as the sediment disappears, the cider can already be tasted (in particular, to evaluate the taste, to understand whether it is worth adding granulated sugar or spices). If everything is in order, then you can bottle the cider (under the neck) and put them away in a cool place.
The finished cider is served chilled and drunk instantly, until a small layer of foam has settled.
