If you're getting ready for holiday drinks, you might also try an easy fermented drink made from sweet potatoes! ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-UdsyFFSYesI.html
Johnny Appleseed was a real person, and his impact on North American apple growing cannot be understated. He singlehandedly planted thousand of apple seeds.
I learned how to make my own elderberry sort of, although it's not anything permitted. But on my word call on my place smells like Christmas. Time when I make that stuff! I make it for wellness, and up the dose whenever I'm sick like when I had covid last summer. I only had 2 really bad days. , and otherwise I was just laying low with mild nausea for the rest of the quarantine time. I also have Toyota silver I was taking as well, though, along with the prescribed medicine I got from urgent care. Whatever expedited my feeling better.
Wow, that is really interesting! We are so glad you like these recipes. Do you have access to watermelon in South Africa? You might want to check out our video on watermelon soda as well. 😃
@@FermentationAdventure Yes, watermelons are available, but I haven't tried that one out yet. Just the ginger beer and Tepache. I have found that just one green grocer has the best pineapples and ginger for fermentation. All the others work slowly or not at all. Price of pineapple will skyrocket now.
@@moonafarms1621 When are having minimal infections and most of the hard lock down measures are over. The government also want elections to go ahead before the next Covid wave. I am still brewing ginger beer, limonade and Tepache. Last try at a ginger bug failed and also the last Tepache I tried. I will try to grow a new ginger bug tomorrow. These fermented drinks are better, the store bough beer makes my beer belly grow.
I've heard about banana wine ( or cider?) from Africa. Yet, never tasted it. But I am affraid to do it myself cause groceries here in Europe usually don't have "more natural" fruits that have yeast bacteries on surface because it's neutrallized from yeast so that they wont degrade fast while it's transported to Europe. I once meet a guy that claim "fruits in Africa, that aren't sprayed, have a wayyy better taste than any grocery in Europe will have" What are your opinion about the banana wine/cider, is it tasty? Or it is something just to play with?
You guys are awesome and I'm super excited to try this out! I don't have a juicer so I'm hoping if I peel and core my apples (and add a little water) that it will turn out ok from my Ninja blender. A couple of questions... 1) have you ever tried this with a little ginger bug? Just curious if it affects taste, timing, etc. 2) Do you think this would work if you cheated with a store-bought apple cider? Keep up the incredible work!
Hi! We're excited you're going to try this recipe! We have some apple cider in the refrigerator and it's one of our prized bottles that we just don't want to finish! It should work just the same if you blend the apples like you described (non chlorinated water of course!). You could add a ginger bug and it would help it ferment more quickly, but it may change the taste a little bit and could make it more carbonated. You could also make a fermented cider with store-bought cider. If it's pasteurized, you will have to use a ginger bug because the pasteurization process would have killed off the good bacteria, so you'll need to re-introduce it with the ginger bug. Have fun fermenting your cider!
@@FermentationAdventure Thanks so much for the great advice, especially with regards to needing to add ginger bug if I use pasteurized apple cider from the store. I think I will try both a batch straight from the apples (w/o ginger bug) and one from store bought cider (w/ ginger bug). Also thanks for the reminder about adding non-chlorinated water. Keep up the awesome work!!
You can just crush everything up peels and all and let it go then rack it and do it over again and how ever many time you want until super clear even 😊
You guy's haven't herd the story of Johnny apple seed 😝 another reason they planted so many apple trees was because they didn't trust the water in the early days, great video guy's thank you
Thanks so much for the comment! I'm sure there's a ton of history that we don't know behind apples in America. We love the great flavors of all the different varieties though!
Good afternoon! Love the video! I cubed my apples up and blended up with a little water to get it to blend. I strained with a floursack towel. Does this need the skins added for the yeast to activate or will I be okay having strained all of the pulp out?
No you don't have to keep the skins in as long as it isn't pasteurized. They should still be present but be sure to watch for mold. Hope it turns out delicious!
You definitely could use yeast if you like just like brewing beer. It might even getting you a cleaner result than relying on natural yeast. Thanks for the question!
LOVE The videos! You both are so helpful ! (Tiny bit of cyanide in your juice! oh no! lol - 8:32 - 8:35 ) Thank you very much for everything you guys do for the community! I can't wait to see more!
Aww, thanks so much for the love! We're so happy you're finding our videos useful. So... I guess we can spill the beans - a new video is coming in about a week!
1:35 The "hard" in hard cider hasn't made sense to me yet, and is just an Americanism. What do you call unfermented grapes? Grape juice. What do you call fermented grapes? You call that wine... you don't call that "hard" wine. What do you call orange juice with pulp? Pulpy orange juice.. what do you call orange juice with no pulp? You call it nonpulpy orange juice. So why is the apple varient so messed up in America? Why do you call clear apple juice apple juice, cloudy apple juice cider, and fermented apple juice "hard" cider? It's apple juice, cloudy apple juice and JUST cider for the fermented version. This is one area the British get it correct in language because it follows the trend... unless you're going to make some hard wine or make up a new word for orange juice with pulp.
Thanks for the thoughts! Yeah there's so many terms that get thrown around similar to ginger ale and ginger beer. Technically an ale is a beer and probably the same for cider and hard cider. I think the term hard cider came around since a lot of people were making mulled cider which is just cider with spices that's non-alcoholic. You can definitely call it whatever you like though! Hard cider is usually around 5% alcohol and apple wine would be more like 10% or so. And you can go even farther by adding champagne yeast to really turn it more alcoholic. Who knows on the terms though! It's what people latched onto! 😆🍎🍺
Makes sense! But we also get a lot of comments from people who are looking for a no-alcohol and low-alcohol fermented beverage, so this one could be a good option for them. Happy fermenting!
When I was young, we used to buy apple cider at roadside stands and it would have a unique bite to it that I've never tasted since. Now, watching this, I realize it must have undergone some fermentation in those plastic cider jugs. Can't wait to try this. Thanks!
What if u just cut up the apple & add sugar and water. Use organic apple if possible and dont wash them as the yeast is on the outside of the apple. I have found that by doing it this way I can drink the fermented juice & just keep adding sugar & water until the apple is spent, which is about 2 weeks. In fact I do with with any fruit I wish to ferment. U guys got me started. I have just added to it. Some things like ginger I leave out of the fridge as it ferments slowly. Other soft flesh fruit like pineapple, I leave in the fridge and add sugar every day. It lasts approx 2 weeks. Great presentation by the way.
Now that sounds like an interesting idea we hadn't thought of but it makes sense! It actually sounds just like the process that we use to make our Mexican tepache. We'll just use the pineapple peels and once a batch is done, we'll repeat the process up to five times! Usually though we'll only repeat that many when we've grown the pineapple ourselves, but love the suggestion! Great idea Blue Sapphire!
Very cool for sure. Probably gonna try this eventually. Did make a ginger bug after watching a bunch of your soda videos. Made root beer with wild harvested sassafras and other herbs and such from our gardens such as mints. Obviously other stuff from the store too added into it. Great videos!
Wow! That's so awesome Derek! It sounds like you've been experimenting with all of our favorite drinks. There's so many more out there to try like our Mexican Pineapple Tepache. If you haven't had that yet, it's a good one. Let us know if you find any amazing flavors that we should try. Happy fermenting! ❤️
Thanks for info on cyanide in the seeds. I forgot and thought it was arsenic…I’ve made apple cider vinegar but never tasted it at the cider stage. It definitely smelled like a brew after a week😎
@@FermentationAdventure we just got some fall weather here in Florida. 60s at night, so it was the perfect time to make slow cooker apple cider! Unfortunately the next day I drank almost all 6qts😁! I did manage to bottle about 24 oz and will have some cold when the weather warms up in a day or two.🍎🍏🍎🍺
Great video! If you want to add some wine yeast to get the alcohol percentage up to 10-12% or so, how much yeast do you use and at what stage of the process should you add it in?
For a 1 gallon recipe like we like to make you could try 1/2 tsp of champagne yeast once the ferment slows way down. This could be anywhere from a few days to a week or so depending on how cool or warm your house is. Champagne yeast likes to consume all of the sugar so from there you'll have to taste it regularly to see how you like it and carbonate to what you like. Don't forget to test the sugar concentration with a hydrometer to see how strong it gets. Good luck and let us know how it goes if you try it!
@@FermentationAdventure hey y’all, quick update. We juiced all of our apples Sunday evening and they have been fermenting ever since. I added in some yeast this morning because I was starting to see some bubbles forming. I added in a half tsp of yeast as instructed and stirred it in. I went back to check it a few mins ago and I’m seeing a bunch of white bubbles on the foam. Is this normal? I’m worried it’s mold but there have been 0 traces of mold since we started and I’m thinking it’s just a reaction from the yeast. Any thoughts?
Wow! It sounds like it's a reaction from the yeast. Once the bubbles calm down you'll be able to see if it's mold, but we think it's unlikely. Also it should still smell pleasant.
why would that A.J. be ilgl? If someone is just doing that at home and having it with their family or maybe some friends, whose business is it? Certainly not the g.e.s.t.a.p.o n.a.z.i.s who just want to control other people's lives. If you wanna do that, I'm not gonna say anything. They can kiss my toenails. You don't have a hard lemonade video, do you? I just found you guys and subscribed after watching some (water) kefir and other fermented drink videos because I want to learn how to do that too.
I'm not commenting to be negative or critical towards you but they way you have made this cider is p erfect for the average person and i had to smile because the ways that i have seen cider made around home especially in rural U.K is so far removed from the lovely clean environment of that kitchen, just think of how when its made outdoors in an old dusty barn, pulped up on a old stone mill, sometimes by a sweaty horse ,or a garden mulcher, the juice then being fermented in an open vat, probably with a dead fox over it for the cider to have extra "body", oh the good old days, but it did taste bloody good, a jug of that made bringing in the hay easier and definitely more social, no bad hangovers after the barn dance either. Just thinking out loud.
Oh my goodness we loved reading your comment! We can just picture this other cider making environment you described, and with the barn dance too! We love to dance and one day would be fun to experience something like that. Sounds like a great time. 🤣
I take it, you can substitute pears instead? I don't like fresh pears but hard pear cider is excellent! Is hard berry cider doable? This was fun to watch! Thanks!
Got it Jenny. No problem. You are welcome to check out the steps on our website: fermentationadventure.com/how-to-make-hard-apple-cider-recipe-alcohol-content/
I'm sure there's so many versions of history depending on who you ask! That would be a hard time living during prohibition. We love all the tastiness that comes from making different types of alcohol. 🍺🍎
I just pressed my very first gallon of apples today, quite a mix. I sure would like to find if I can have or make it cider or stronger ... without yeast ... I don't have any of the latter but I wanted to get my feet wet trying .. next year should be a lot more effort... apple grinder came a couple of days ago and I just kept the apples as cold as possible. I wonder if I just kept this 1st gal sealed .. refrigerated or cool shed .. and if I can add wine yeah later. I am baby new to this.@@FermentationAdventure
Wow! It sounds like you have a lot of apple trees near you. That must be a lot of fun to have fresh apples available like that. To make it stronger we'd definitely recommend some kind of a champagne yeast to ferment it but we still love the less alcoholic apple cider. Thanks so much for sharing David! We hope you're getting some good cider batches! 🍎🍺
It is still doing a little and I just got some packets of Lalvin K1-V1116 Wine Yeast but still don't know if I should just pour it into the gallon jug now.. this is my very first make.@@FermentationAdventure
i dont think you needed to collect the wild yeast being that the apple skins has yeast and i dont think it got hot enough to pasteurize when you blended it.
Hi! You make great points. While it didn't hurt to try to capture wild yeast from the air, there's probably enough wild yeast right there on the apples!
why no air lock? I haven't tried wild yeast apple wine. Mold spores might get thru a cloth cover. Freeze distillation does not remove the Methanol which evaporates off between 145 to 170 deg. F. Ethanol evaporates around 173 deg. You could heat the batch of apple Jack with a dimpled in cover with holes to release the methanol till the batch gets to 172 deg. Methanol is in wine, beer but not heat distilled spirits.
Great video, thank you. Many people eat apple seeds for the laetrile, vitamin B17, which prevents cancer. The tiny amount of cyanide is not an issue because the body excretes it easily or combines it with another chemical to form vitamin B12. If you were to eat tons of seeds, then that may be another matter but that applies to eating too much of anything.
Awesome tutorial, had no idea could ferment that quick or could use a cloth for airlock. A lot of other tutorials make it seem like you have to spend hundreds on Equiptment and takes months
Hi! Thanks so much for the comment! If you think about it, fermentation has been around a very long time, well before we had fancy equipment. While it's been convenient to have some of the newer fermentation tools, it can also be done quite simply. Glad you enjoyed the video!
I have started this process today. I'm wondering what should I do to avoid mold on this one? I recently had a disaster with mold on my kombucha. I think I haven't used enough tart apples, they were mostly sweet apples. Should I do anything about that? Maybe add something acidic?
Hello! You could try adding a little bit of fresh squeezed lemon juice, as well as giving it a light stir daily. That should keep the top layer refreshed so that it is less likely to get mold. Hope that helps!
@@FermentationAdventure Thank you for your response. This is very helpful! I actually a very small added a bit of bread yeast to it, we'll see how it goes.
Apple peel are super high in fiber…. Specially the green one. I usually peel 8 green apple and blend it with Lemon juice and mint leaves. It’s sooo delicious and smooths my Tommy. Who ever reads this has had has to try it…
That sounds wonderful. Thanks for sharing! Whenever we have either indigestion or feel a bit gassy, we find that drinking a small cup of our fermented ginger ale really does the trick. And it's amazing how fast it works. 😊
Hi! You can leave the apple skin on for blending because you'll strain out the apple pieces before fermenting to get the juice. Although if you think your blender will struggle to blend with the skins on then feel free to remove the apple skins.
Interesting! We hadn't heard this but just looked it up and it looks like there's some truth to that. I have no idea how this would work in fermentation but that's a good one to know! Thanks for sharing! 😊
Thankyou for this video. I wonder how many people have neither an apple press or a juicer.? Would be nice to see you making it with the blender.? I want to give it a go with my blender.....but I imagine the whole texture of the juice will be different...and no foam? . Have you guys actually tried it by blending and then squeezing out the juice? Not wanting to waste a whole ton of apples here... Thankyou...
Hi Terri! We completely understand your hesitation to use the blender. To show you what it looks like, we just blended an apple and added a little bit of non-chlorinated water, then strained it, and it worked out great! You can check out the photos I just added to our cider FaceBook post: facebook.com/fermentationadventure/posts/3543889635650395
Oh no. This is all wrong. Those scraps, especially the peels , are responsible for the terpenes and flavonoids that make the cider taste powerfully good. You can also add pectin enzyme to clear up your cider. Another wrong thing done here.....that mold.....you should have done your fermentation in a 5 gallon food grade buckets, with a carboy ventilator on top. The clear glass and breathable top caused your mold growth, and that's not healthy. Maybe just use a regular blender instead of that fancy food processor. You should also leave that batch to ferment for at least two weeks. Frankly, having screwed up this process a few times before learning to get it right..... I would not drink what you made. It's sus.
Thanks for your suggestion! Since we're not fermenting for very long we don't mind it going slightly acidic. But we also do like to use fermentation lids or airlocks to keep oxygen out. 🍎
Thank you! We appreciate you joining us on our fermentation adventures! All our research has shown that the issue with apple seeds is cyanide though...
Hi! That's a great question! To get the ferment started, you want it to be exposed to the air to capture wild yeast and to give oxygen to the yeast that's already on the apples. Since we only fermented for a handful of days, it was fine not to use an airlock but if you would let this ferment a longer period of time, then you would want to put on an airlock to stabilize the culture.
Thanks so much for your question Nikki! Yes if you let it ferment longer it would start to become more alcoholic, but the natural bacteria and yeast can only stand so much alcohol. To make to even more alcoholic you'd have to add some kind of different yeast to take over like a champagne yeast. We hope that helps and that you got a good cider! 🍎
Great Video. Trying it this year with our apple tree. How could I add sugar or yeast to to this same recipe to make a little more alcohol content? Cheers
That's awesome! We hope you're getting some good batches of apple cider. To make it more alcoholic you'd probably have to add something like a champagne yeast to take over the ferment. Naturally occurring bacteria and yeast tend not to like a lot of alcohol and slows down quite a bit. I hope that helps! 🍎
We haven't tried crab apples but I'm sure that would be tasty! It's always possible you might have to add some sugar if it was a little too sour. Sounds like a good experiment! 🍎
What does wine yeast do to The cider during the fermentation process and at what stage of the fermentation would you add the wine yeast I have some yeast here that I need to use and what would the end result look and taste like after adding the wine yeast I've never made cider before as a matter of fact I've never even tasted cider before much less hard cider so this would be a first time for me and I'm curious and anxious to get started
You can add the wine yeast right at the beginning if you like to make sure it's not as sour from the natural yeast that's on the apples. Feel free to try either way and even add the wine yeast after the natural way is finished at the end to get a higher alcohol content. Thanks for the question!
It should definitely increase the alcohol a bit up to a certain point. Wild yeast and bacteria don't seem to like getting above 5% or so which is why a lot of people use champagne yeast which can take it over 10%. Good idea on the airlock too!
Definitely! We actually did this using a ginger but with a few different store-bought juices: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-CtpM1ouPt8k.html Enjoy! 😊
Love this. Can't wait to try! Would you be able to explain how to carbonate it? Would one just bottle it for a few days and vent occasionally? Or does sugar need to be added?
Thanks for the question! As long as you have some activity, didn't see any mold, and it passed the smell and taste test, you can definitely bottle it for carbonation if you like. There should be enough sugar in the apples already for the bacteria and yeast to consume to create the pressure but you can add more if you like. We would put some in those glass beer bottles with a flip-top lid that are built for pressure. We also like to have one bottle a plastic soda bottle so we can squeeze it to keep track of the pressure. Be very careful with carbonating to make sure you don't get any explosions. Good luck and happy fermenting!
Thanks for your question Fazel! In this recipe we didn't add any sugar since the apples have a lot of sugar in it already. It ferments great with just the juiced apples. Happy fermenting! 😊
Hello 👋🏻 so if I keep for 2-3 weeks alcohol content will get higher ? Can you test it for us ☺️ On another channel guy added sugar to carbonate and get the alcohol content higher ( that’s what he said ) 🤷🏻♀️
Thanks so much for the question! Yes after 2-3 weeks it will definitely get more alcohol content. We have another video where we tested ginger beer every day to check the alcohol content ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-86SwZyUbtF0.html but we haven't done it for apple cider. That would be interesting! We tested the alcohol at 3 days and it was about 3% and then 6 days it was about 3.5% so not too much more. The more sugar you add, the more alcohol you will get up to a certain point. We'll have to experiment sometime! Thanks for the suggestion and happy fermenting!
How would you handle adding flavor to it like cinnamon, ginger or others? Would you juice it together then ferment it? Or add it after the fermentation is done?
Of yes, great ideas! Adding some fresh ginger to the juice would be great! It would probably speed up the fermentation process, so you'll want to taste test to see when you want to stop fermenting. The cinnamon and other spices likes cloves and nutmeg would be great added to the juice just before fermenting. Enjoy!
Hi! Yes you could ferment it longer to increase the alcohol content. Although with this particular ferment the taste changes quite a bit over time, and much less like a cider. You could consider adding the same yeast that is used in making apple wine, which would increase the alcohol content.
Wow, that's one great video guys. Simple, but truly worth it. :) I made three patches of the cider (All which I used old-fashioned apple press), one is normal while other two (By using turbo cider method) where flavored. including ORANGE-COLA BABY!! Honestly, I would like to see you going to do quote-inquote "Fermented" cola someday. :) Now, only have has to do is try the taste once bottle conditioning is ready to drink.
Thank you so much for the great comments Aaron! Omg I bet the orange cola was amazing! We've made root beer so far but haven't gotten around to making a fermented cola. That would be delicious! Definitely look out for that in the future! 🥤
Definitely! We noticed after leaving it for a while it becomes very clear. From there you can pour the clear in a new jar if you don't want the sediment. It's good stuff too though! Lots of nutrients in there also. Happy fermenting!
You should definitely be able to make cider vinegar with the scraps from apples including the skin and the core. That's a very popular method for making something useful from the waste instead of just composting it. We hope that helps! 🍎
Hi! Yes, absolutely you can make apple cider using a starter culture. If you're using a starter, you can even use store bought, pasteurized apple cider and just add the starter like a ginger bug. It will ferment more quickly than this recipe which does not use a starter culture. You can reference our ginger ale video for quantities of how much liquid to ginger bug ratio. Enjoy!
You could but you'd have to be sure that it wasn't pasteurized to begin with. The only thing I'd worry about is if you have a fresh bottle of apple cider, you don't necessarily know how it was handled before. Be careful to watch for mold and any weird smells. We like making it right from apples so we know how it was processed from beginning to end. That would be tasty though! Good luck!
Thanks for the question Lily. With apple wine you'd be using a packaged wine yeast to actually make a wine whereas how we made this hard cider is with wild fermentation using the yeast and bacteria already present on the apples. Apple wine would taste very crisp and free of funky tastes. Apple cider vinegar gets very tangy also from the fermentation process and the alcohol turning into vinegar.
Thanks for the great video. Love the way you guys come thru. I have some queries before I start ..... I have a cold press juicer which is a bit different from what you seem to be using , will that work ok? Also, you did wild fermentation without adding sugar and it seemd quite a job to monitor every 12 hrs & stir & remove the foam etc.....would you suggest adding yeast to get the fermentation started right away? .....and adding some sugar , say about 1/2 cupful for every litre of juice so that the final ABP perhaps is around 8 or 10% ?
Thanks for the questions Upal! Yes the cold press juicer should work just fine and is usually a little better since it doesn't heat up the juice. You definitely could add some yeast if you like or are having trouble but we haven't had a problem getting it to ferment with wild fermentation. Since the apple juice is already very sweet you probably wouldn't have to add any sugar. Normally we do add about 1/2 cup sugar per liter of liquid to an unsweet drink, but apples already have a lot of sugar. Good luck and happy fermenting! 🍎😊
Hi! Yum! Yes, you could actually use our blueberry soda recipe (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-6pTF5d0I_qg.html) and process but instead of the blueberries, you could use freshly squeezed lemonade (lemon, sugar, non-chlorinated water, and ginger bug). That sounds delicious!
Hi! Actually no, you would not need to boil the lemonade because you are not using the outside of the fruit so you wouldn't be introducing any other bacteria. You could just use the fresh juice with ginger bug. Great question!
@@FermentationAdventure I will definitely let you know. The process seems easy, so I'm going to wait until some local vendors are selling apples in my area. Should have some tasty varieties here in Virginia.