firefighterjake said:
FireManDan said:
I bought some store brand Musselmans from walmart that was $3.98 a gallon. Cheaper alternative to the local orchard and taste good.
Around here all the cider in the stores are pasteurized . . . would that still work for making hard cider? Personally, I can't stand pasteurized cider anyways . . . tastes like unfiltered apple juice to me vs. the non-pasteurized cider.
You want pateurized juice. No preservatives, no sorbates or other chemicals, just pasteurized. This kills the natural bugs, yeasts, and bacteria that may be stronger than the yeast that you choose. Should the wrong bugs take over the fermentation, you could end up with apple-cider vinegar which is fine if you want 5 gallons of vinegar but not if you want hard cider. In the abscence of pasteurozed juice you have to kill the natural bugs yourself which normally involves campden tablets which is better known as sulfites and gives people headaches. No thanks, regular pasteurized cider is ideal.
5$ a gallon is cheap. That's 25$ for a 5 gallon batch which is 53 12 ounce bottles which is 50 cents each and is cheaper than buying the junkiest busch macro beer. And it's freaking wonderful homebrew hard cider!
Don't cheap out on ingredients if you want real local cider. You might save 5 or 6 bucks on a 5 gallon batch to go from really good ingredients to some sort of rehydrated chinese cider powder from 1967.