The new episode is out! Today, I spoke with Jon Schlee about his experience with making great apple ciders. We talked about cider from beginner the entire world of different types of ciders. I totally enjoyed talking about it, and I am encouraging everyone to please listen to this podcast.
Link : Episode 51 - Making Cider with Jon Schlee - Homebrewing DIY
I listened to that episode during my run yesterday – did you time it with latest Zymurgy on purpose?
Apples don’t grow super well in Southern Alabama: we’re mostly limited to supermarket juice here. So I’m pretty interested in trying some of the acid adjustments and/or a more characterful yeast in my next batch.
I’ve been harvesting and pressingmy own apples for cider for 20 years. What I’ve learned is the best cider is dependent on the apples you use and the yeast you choose. After that, it’s remarkably easy.
They don’t like N AL too much either. The deer get all the little ones that do happen to grow
We used to get some pretty good apples from Isom’s when we were up in Huntsville. But they were all table apples . . . not really cider apples.
+1. The bigger farms have them but my poor trees produce deer feed. Same with my peaches and plums. Of course, it might be the guy takin care of them.
Yeah, we have fig tree that feeds the birds more than us. 
You can make good hard cider from table apples, although some varieties are definitely better than others. The sweet cider that I get from my local orchards makes decent to excellent hard cider (depending on the quality of the year’s harvest), and it is primarily made from your usual suspects for table apples (McIntosh, Macoun, Empire, etc.)
Gravenstein apples make delicious cider. I had enjoyed buying cider for years and finally made a 3-gallon batch last year, and it was wonderful. I was surprised at how easy it was to make cider (I bought the juice from a local orchard that freezes their juice after pressing).I used Fresco yeast at the recommendation of our LHBS and will do the same this year. May go back for Pink Lady juice as well.
I just bought four dwarf cider apple trees to plant in my yard. They will arrive in the spring and take several years to fruit but then between those and the two dessert apple trees I already have I’ll be able to develop a nice blended cider. Hopefully I’ll get enough to do a small bottling run and fill a cask.
Color me jealous.