Hard Cider: From Apples to Buzz

This is another first for my fermentation adventures: hard cider...yes, from apples! I've wanted to make hard cider for several months now, but I'm cheap and had no intention of buying apples or fresh pressed cider from an orchard. So, now that I live in a state where every other yard contains some type of fruit tree, I decided it was time. I published a craigslist ad requesting free apples. Not surprisingly, I got a reply the same day. However, surprisingly, I only ever received one reply. I guess (despite what the apple-littered ground suggests) people want to keep their apples or don't want freeloaders like me coming to pick them. Anyway, I went out to craigslist ad respondent's house (who, btw, informed me that at one time he was driving a car he got for $15 off the craigslist "barter" page) northeast of Kalamazoo (I know, there are a million apple trees between Vicksburg and northeast Kalamazoo, but I was in the mood for a drive) and picked 2 5-gallon buckets full of apples (along with a few pears he didn't even know he had). Since I do not have a fruit press, my method of juice extraction was my trusty Jack Lalanne Power Juicer (you know, the one from the infomercials). It did what I wanted it to do, albeit not very efficiently. As a result, these (free) apples barely filled my carboy half way:

I wanted more cider. I needed more apples. On the way home from a trip to the recycling center during which I began to realize just how many apple trees I passed on my daily routes, I decided to stop at a public park that had been catching my eye for awhile (I'm always on the lookout for new places to take my kids to play). I got out of my car and started walking around. I saw trees that had the shape of fruit trees. Lots of them...full of apples and crab apples! This park practically had its own orchard just waiting to be picked. I, of course, had my buckets in tow and filled both of them from several different trees.

The apples weren't too sweet, with plenty of tartness and tannins that will hopefully yield a nice, dry, tart hard cider.

So it took 4 5-gallon buckets full of small to medium apples (probably about ~100 lbs.) for my juicer to produce approximately 6 gallons of cider. So far, I couldn't be happier.

I poured the cider into two carboys, aerated, and pitched half a sachet of S-04 English Ale yeast in each. The OG of 1.040 was not quite what I had hoped, so I added one pound of table sugar in each carboy to bump the gravity up to 1.056. Hoping to get a nice dry cider of at least 5.5% ABV. I'll try to post an update on how it turns out with tasting notes. Until then, I encourage any of you with access to apples or extra cash to make some hard cider. Experiment with different varieties, processes, yeast strains, and/or additions of hops/wood/bugs/etc. Good luck!. Be Fermentive!