Charlotte Pemberton
Why the Apples Matter More Than the Equipment
You can press juice from any apple, but the fruit you put in decides whether you end up with a bland sweet drink or something with real depth. A useful rule of thumb is to think in three parts: sugar, acid and tannin. Dessert apples such as Cox, Egremont Russet or Discovery bring sugar and aroma. Cookers such as Bramley bring the sharpness that keeps the juice from tasting flat. And proper cider varieties — Kingston Black, Dabinett, Yarlington Mill — bring the bitter tannins that give a dry cider its grip and length.
If you are working with whatever your garden gives you, blend rather than press a single variety. Roughly two parts sweet to one part sharp is a good starting point, and a handful of crab apples or a few cider apples in the mix will lift the whole batch. Use fruit that is ripe but still firm; apples that are turning soft make poor juice and are harder to press. Windfalls are perfectly usable, provided you cut away every bruised and brown patch. Discard anything mouldy without hesitation — one bad apple really will taint a gallon.
If you can, let the fruit sweat in a cool shed for a week or two before pressing. The flesh softens, the starch converts to sugar, and the juice comes away far more readily.
Washing, Milling and Setting Up the Press
Wash the apples in a tub of cold water, scrubbing the blossom end where grit and soil collect. A splash of vinegar in the water helps shift anything stubborn. Rinse and drain, then cut out stalks and any damaged tissue.
Next comes the milling, and this is where most beginners go wrong. You want a pulp the texture of coarse porridge, not a smooth purée. A purpose-built scratter does the job in minutes, but a food processor pulsed in small batches works well, as does a sturdy bucket and a length of clean timber for a slow, satisfying session. Freezing whole apples and then thawing them is another old trick that breaks down the cell walls beautifully.
Set up your press over a clean bucket, with a jug to hand. You will need pressing cloths — proper nylon press bags are worth buying, but a double layer of clean muslin or a well-washed pillowcase works. Build the "cheese" in layers:
- Place a wooden pressing plate or slatted board on the base.
- Lay a cloth over it and fill with pulp to a depth of about 5 cm, folding the cloth neatly over the top.
- Add the next cloth and layer, repeating until the stack is 30–40 cm high.
- Finish with a top plate, then begin winding the press down.
Pressing and Collecting the Juice
Patience is everything here. Wind the press down gently and stop when you feel real resistance. Juice will begin to trickle, then run. Wait a minute, wind again, wait again. Crank too hard too early and the pulp squeezes out sideways instead of releasing its juice, and you will be picking apple mush out of your bucket for an hour.
When the flow slows to a drip, release the pressure, break up the cakes, rewrap them and press a second time. That second pressing is worth the effort — it often yields another quarter of the total. Expect roughly half a litre of juice per kilogram of apples, and up to 650 ml if your milling was good.
Taste the raw juice before you do anything else. Too sharp? Blend in juice from a sweeter variety. Thin and dull? A little tannin from cider apples or a strong cup of cooled tea will give it backbone. If you plan to keep the juice or ferment it, a crushed campden tablet per 4.5 litres, left for 24 hours, will knock back wild yeasts and bacteria without harming the flavour.
Pasteurising for Sweet Juice That Keeps
Fresh juice is at its best within three or four days, kept cold. To keep it for months, pasteurise it. Warm the juice in a large pan to 70–75°C and hold it there for fifteen minutes, stirring gently. Do not let it boil: boiling sets the pectin, clouds the juice and gives it a cooked, stewed flavour that no amount of chilling will fix.
Pour hot into sterilised bottles, cap immediately and invert each bottle for a minute to sterilise the neck and lid. Stored somewhere cool and dark, this will keep for a year. Freezing in plastic containers, leaving 3 cm of headroom for expansion, is a simpler route if you have the space.
Fermenting a Traditional Dry Cider
Let fresh juice stand for 24 hours so the sediment settles, then rack it off into a sterilised fermenting bin or demijohn. Check the specific gravity — you are looking for something between 1.045 and 1.060. If it reads lower, add a little sugar syrup; if higher, dilute with a small amount of boiled, cooled water.
- Pitch a dedicated cider yeast, or a white wine yeast as a reliable stand-in.
- Add yeast nutrient if you are using dessert apples only, which are low in the minerals yeast needs.
- Fit an airlock and ferment at 15–20°C. It should start bubbling within 48 hours.
After seven to fourteen days the vigorous fermentation subsides. Rack the cider into a clean demijohn, top up to the neck to limit air contact, and leave it for four to eight weeks to drop clear. It will finish dry, somewhere around 0.998 to 1.004. Over the winter, a secondary malolactic fermentation often softens the sharpness on its own — a change you will notice as a gentler, rounder drink in the spring.
Bottling, Priming and Patience
Check the gravity on three consecutive days before bottling. If it has not moved, fermentation is done. For still cider, bottle straight into strong glass with crown caps and store it cool. For a gentle sparkle, prime with about 5 g of sugar per litre — roughly a level teaspoon in a 500 ml bottle — and use proper pressure-rated bottles only. Thin glass and fizzy cider are a combination best avoided.
Keep primed bottles warm for a fortnight, then move them somewhere cool for at least three months. Dry cider genuinely improves with keeping, and a batch left until the following autumn will taste far better than one opened in a fortnight. Label every bottle with the date and the apple blend. Next year, when you cannot remember what went into it, you will be very glad you did.
