Cider without juicing

[CharlieP]

Hi couple of questions about cider,

4-5 gall ferment bucket, can I just cut the apples up small and ferment like this without juicing?

And how many apples would I need for this amount.?

I know about yeast, sterising etc.

 

[Renaleo]

I used to make crabapple cider and I just put them in a food processor in batches and minced them up. Worked well but it was too long ago for me to remember quantities I'm afraid.

 

[MattH1973]

to get any substantive amount of juice apples need to be crushed, then pressed in my experience. I would just get a crusher and be done with it.

 

[Cwrw666]

If you want to make pressing easier, freeze then thaw the apples first. This ruptures the cell membranes and let's the juice out easier.

 

[prog99]

I’ve done cider once with a domestic fruit juicer.
Took ages and very messy

 

[jof]

I've done cider using a food processor and fermenting the pulp. But I had to cheat and add about 3 litres of cheap apple juice to 17l of pulp and add pectolytic enzymr to get enough liquid to get it started.
After a couple of weeks I strained it through a mesh bag and let it finish fermenting.

Was time consuming & messy.

 

[dmtaylor]

Apples are mostly air. You can't just chop them up and hope to ferment them to make many gallons of cider. You might end up with a few liters of cider instead of gallons. And it would be an absolute mess to deal with. Don't try it.

If you don't want to deal with pressing them properly, then just do what millions of other people do, and BUY your juice.

Assuming you have a lot of apples, use them in other ways such as eating fresh, sauce, pies, giving them away, etc.

 

[LottieWine]

if lack of a press is the issue, they can be hired for a weeken.

 

[Philthebrewer]

I converted my old garden shredder to a fruit press by simply stripping it down and cleaning thoroughly. It creates a good apple mash. Then bought a cheap hydropress from ebay and can now make hundreds of litres of juice with little cost. The juice can be stored frozen in a big chest freezer, pasteurised in a beer kettle or fermented to excellent cider. If you have enough apple trees (or friends with them) then it is definitely worth the effort.