How to: Brew cider

5
The scumbag’s approach to scrumpy

Right then, to get brewing your very own delicious scrumpy you’re going to need a bucket of rustic English apples – sourced from your favourite local orchard, without a sticker in sight. Set them on a dry stone wall while you fire up your traditional apple mill. Now tip the lot in.

Done that OK? No, of course not, but the good thing about making your own cider is that it needn’t get much more technical than a few cartons of apple juice, some yeast, and a big glug of Thrifty Gobbler style bodgery. Here’s how it’s done:

To begin brewing, you will need:
4 Litre ex-mineral water bottle (around £1 from supermarket, or £2.50 complete with punched hole and bung, from home brewing suppliers)
Airlock (around £2.50 from Wilkinson’s)
A funnel (around 99p for a set of 3 from Wilkinson’s)
A plastic spoon/measuring spoon
Some Blu tac (unless you buy the purpose-built bottle)
Steriliser (around £1.40 from Wilkinson’s)
Siphoning kit (around £2 from Wilkinson’s)

Then:
4 litres of pasteurised apple juice – anything without preservatives is fine. We used Morrison’s apple juice at 79p per litre
Granulated sugar
Pectolase (around 79p from Wilkinson’s)
Brewer’s yeast (around 69p from Wilkinson’s)

Approximate price to make:
£10 with all the hardware. Ingredients alone come to about £2.70, which works out at approximately 40p per pint.

First off, give your bottles, airlocks, funnel and spoon a thorough sterlising. Dissolve a teaspoon of the powder in water in your bottle and slosh it into/through/around/over the rest of the equipment
Pour 2 litres of the juice into one of your bottles and put it to one side

Three cartons later

Pour boiling water into a saucepan and rinse thoroughly – the idea is to get the pan as warm and clean as possible
Pour 1 litre of the remaining juice into the saucepan, and set over a very gentle heat. Stir in half a pound of sugar to make toe-curling 7.5% abv. – leave it out for a milder 5% version
Stir until the sugar has dissolved, funnel it into your half-filled bottle and swirl to stop the sugar syrup settling. Top up with more of the remaining juice to the shoulder of the bottle

One Gobbler scrump, ready to brew

Leave the mixture to cool to approximately luke, and add one teaspoon of yeast and one of pectolase. Give the bottle another slosh about (with the cap screwed firmly on)
Now to fit the airlock. First, pour some boiling water into your airlock to a) get it clean and b) act as the stopper that keeps unwanted grime from getting in, and allows carbon dioxide to get out. Now punch or drill a hole in the bottle cap, insert the lock and make sure it’s fully sealed with Blu-Tac
Here begins the waiting game. Make sure you have lots of juice on hand to keep topping up the bottle and leave your brew somewhere cool and dry for between 4-6 weeks
You should see and hear lots of healthy bubbling as the cider ferments. Once the 4-6 weeks are up, remove your airlock and siphon off the sediment, with your siphoning kit
Finally, to add a little fizz; decant your cider into smaller bottles, add a quarter of a teaspoon of sugar to each and leave for 10 days or so. Chill and drink responsibly

The best thing about the scumbag’s approach to cider brewing is that you needn’t stop at apples. You can put anything into the mix – so long as the juice you use is of the pasteurised, no-preservatives variety. Try apple and blackcurrant, or raspberry.

Uncle Chris’s top tip:
Leave your cider for a few weeks more and you can have yourself (strong) apple wine; great for use in cocktails and cooking.

Comments

Uncle Chris - 29th September 2009, 10:01pm

When is somebody going to leave a recipe for homemade ginger beer? you can make it as strong as you like and it costs about tuppence a pint to make. If nobody does it I’ll have to give a recipe myself. I was hoping to slip in the little known fact that Homer Simpson is a big afictionadoh of ginger beer and likes to drink it when wanting to give the impression of enjoying a soft drink, when actually knocking back an 8%. At this time of the year why not crush a few free damsons into the mash and create something pink and fizzy, which would go down well with the fairer sexist?

Cousin Ivan - 30th September 2009, 10:45pm

Uncle Chris, would that be 2p or two pence a pint? Suspecting by your spelling of ‘tuppence’ that you are an elderly gent, I’m assuming that you mean two OLD pence. That means in modern money less than 1p. Whereas if you mean 2p, (modern money), the price per pint is double what you specify, (or around 5 OLD pence). I think that on a ‘Thrifty’ food blog, where we are all counting every penny (new OR old), accuracy is important. Perhaps you haven’t got up to speed yet with decimalisation, introduced on 15 February 1971?

Uncle Chris - 1st October 2009, 9:04am

Cousin Ivan would be wrong to assume that I am an elderly gent, I was of course using the word to evoke a past that never was, as in Mary Poppins’ “feed the birds, tuppence a bag”, or the price the Hovis lad would have paid for his loaf. When someone gets round to actually putting a recipe on, we will see how much a pint it is in the real world. You sound like someone who has to convert a price into “old money” before being confident enough to creak open your wallet.

Rich - 2nd October 2009, 12:50pm

Now then lads, that’s quite enough.

Ginger beer recipe will be up soon, so we can all have a nice drink, and put any talk of old and new pence behind us

Dizzy - 12th November 2009, 12:37pm

Do you think you could add a bit of cinnamon to make it a more christmassey (not really a word but hey-ho!) or wintery (again non-existent word but sure you know what i mean!) drink? I’ve made apple wine before but not sure if adding cinnamon would work?

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The scumbag’s approach to scrumpy Right then, to get brewing your very own delicious scrumpy you’re going to need a bucket of rustic English apples – sourced from your favourite local orchard, without a sticker in sight. Set them on a dry stone wall while you fire up your traditional apple mill. Now tip the lot in. Done that OK? No, of course not, but the good thing about making your own cider is that it needn’t get much more technical than a few cartons of apple juice, some yeast, and a big glug of Thrifty Gobbler style bodgery. Here’s how it’s done: To begin brewing, you will need: 4 Litre ex-mineral water bottle (around £1 from supermarket, or £2.50 complete with punched hole and bung, from home brewing suppliers) Airlock (around £2.50 from Wilkinson’s) A funnel (around 99p for a set of 3 from Wilkinson’s) A plastic spoon/measuring spoon Some Blu tac (unless you buy the purpose-built bottle) Steriliser (around £1.40 from Wilkinson’s) Siphoning kit (around £2 from Wilkinson’s) Then: 4 litres of pasteurised apple juice – anything without preservatives is fine. We used Morrison’s apple juice at 79p per litre Granulated sugar Pectolase (around 79p from Wilkinson’s) Brewer’s yeast (around 69p from Wilkinson’s) Approximate price to make: £10 with all the hardware. Ingredients alone come to about £2.70, which works out at approximately 40p per pint. First off, give your bottles, airlocks, funnel and spoon a thorough sterlising. Dissolve a teaspoon of the powder in water in your bottle and slosh it into/through/around/over the rest of the equipment Pour 2 litres of the juice into one of your bottles and put it to one side Three cartons later Pour boiling water into a saucepan and rinse thoroughly – the idea is to get the pan as warm and clean as possible Pour 1 litre of the remaining juice into the saucepan, and set over a very gentle heat. Stir in half a pound of sugar to make toe-curling 7.5% abv. – leave it out for a milder 5% version Stir until the sugar has dissolved, funnel it into your half-filled bottle and swirl to stop the sugar syrup settling. Top up with more of the remaining juice to the shoulder of the bottle One Gobbler scrump, ready to brew Leave the mixture to cool to approximately luke, and add one teaspoon of yeast and one of pectolase. Give the bottle another slosh about (with the cap screwed firmly on) Now to fit the airlock. First, pour some boiling water into your airlock to a) get it clean and b) act as the stopper that keeps unwanted grime from getting in, and allows carbon dioxide to get out. Now punch or drill a hole in the bottle cap, insert the lock and make sure it’s fully sealed with Blu-Tac Here begins the waiting game. Make sure you have lots of juice on hand to keep topping up the bottle and leave your brew somewhere cool and dry for between 4-6 weeks You should see and hear lots of healthy bubbling as the cider ferments. Once the 4-6 weeks are up, remove your airlock and siphon off the sediment, with your siphoning kit Finally, to add a little fizz; decant your cider into smaller bottles, add a quarter of a teaspoon of sugar to each and leave for 10 days or so. Chill and drink responsibly The best thing about the scumbag’s approach to cider brewing is that you needn’t stop at apples. You can put anything into the mix – so long as the juice you use is of the pasteurised, no-preservatives variety. Try apple and blackcurrant, or raspberry. Uncle Chris’s top tip: Leave your cider for a few weeks more and you can have yourself (strong) apple wine; great for use in cocktails and cooking. - http://www.thriftygobbler.com/22/

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