Cider making recipe/method query...

[Stellastar80]

Hello there

I'm following an old recipe for what's called 'Simple Cider' from Mary Norwak's Farmhouse Kitchen recipe book. I believe she's done a number of books on preserving and other stuff so hopefully she's a pretty reliable writer. But this is the first time I've tried homebrewing and this recipe seems very easy but not one I've seen before so I wanted to just see if people thought it's going to work.

It involves simply putting minced apples and water together in a pot for 1 week - I placed them in a plastic sterilized brewing bucket with a sealable lid. After 1 week you can apparently add sugar and lemon juice and bottle in screw top bottles. She advises then leaving for 1 month to improve flavour.

Can anyone advise whether this method is safe and/or effective? I've heard some bad things about 'bad bacteria' etc and an article in the Guardian advises the use of 'campden tablets' but you have to add these at the correct time apparently so as not to kill the yeast...? Is this necessary?

Anyway I'm slightly confused and just wondered if any experienced brewers out there could advise me whether the method I'm following will produce something safe and drinkable! (and will it even become alcoholic with this method?!)

 

[Peapodmaster]

There are loads of different ways to make cider from apples. there are a few recipies on this forum which i'd reccomend.

 

[Anthony Waters]

Ive just started 2 gallons of scrumpy yesterday , im no expert but i will tell you what ive done. I processed my apples without cores in a food processor with just a little water to help them blend then pressed them through a fine metal colander to extract the juice its tedious work One whole garden sack made 8 pts of juice and nearly a pint of that will be the water i added. Then i put the juice into a demijon with a sachet of champagne yeast, 2tsp of yeast nutrient and 250g of sugar the starting gravity was 1060- 1070 ish it was quite tricky to measure due to the fruit pulp content. The demijon is airlocked and the contents are spinning round like a washing machine. I will let it ferment then rack it off and leave it till christmas when it will be bottled and i wont touch it till next summer and if my calculation are right it will be a dry 9% volume cider which will probably benefit from a splash of lemonade.