Author: Marshall Schott

A common conception when it comes to making hard cider is that, like wine, the source of the must matters a lot with most cider aficionados heartily preferring to use juice from apple varieties not typically snacked on. While some modern cider makers rely on sweet and palatable table apples such as Gala or Pink Lady, traditionally, the varieties viewed as best for hard cider have a more prominent acid and tannic character– Cox Orange Pippin, Herefordshire Redstreak, Kingston Black, and Brown Snout, to name a few.

For those who don’t live near an apple orchard but want to make their own hard cider, acquiring high quality must can be a rather involved task, which has led many to experiment with juices purchased at the local grocer. The range of available options is typically pretty vast with the cheapest being reconstituted from concentrate and filtered to crystal clear, while more spendy juices are often opaque and come straight from the apple press.

My first few experiences drinking hard cider were less than exceptional and caused me wonder whether I actually liked it or not. I was inspired to make my first batch by my brother-in-law, who’d spent some time in Spain where he developed a strong liking of Sidra. Chintzy as I am, I went with the classic Tree Top apple juice dosed with a bit of brown sugar and fermented with Nottingham ale yeast, which produced a boozy beverage Uncle Joe loved but I wasn’t a big fan of. However, there was something I found appealing about the flavor, at least enough to motivate further experimentation using other ale yeasts to ferment cheap juices. Lo and behold, I realized I actually really do like cider, at least the ones I was producing on the cheap and easy.

Expectedly, every time I talk about my approach to making hard cider, others comment that I ought to try it out using a higher quality juice, usually claiming the unfiltered stuff leads to more complex character. Curious to taste the difference for myself, and wanting to have a couple kegs on tap for Uncle Joe’s holiday visit, I decided to put it to the test!

| PURPOSE |

To evaluate the differences between a hard cider made with cheap filtered juice and one made with more expensive unfiltered juice.

| METHODS |

One of the beautiful things about making cider is that the “brew day” consists driving to the store and buying juice, which in the case of this particular experiment required 2 trips to acquire cheap and expensive juices.

Proletariate

Recipe Details Batch Size Boil Time IBU SRM Est. OG Est. FG ABV 5.2 gal 0 min 0.0 IBUs 8.2 SRM 1.000 0.997 0.3 % Actuals 1.054 1.002 6.9 % Fermentables Name Amount % Apple Juice: Cheap Filtered OR Expensive Unfiltered 44.064 lbs 100 Miscs Name Amount min Type Potassium Sorbate 2.50 tsp 0 min Secondary Other Potassium Metabisulfite 0.50 tsp 0 min Secondary Other Apple Juice Concentrate 3.00 Items 0 min Bottling Flavor Yeast Name Lab Attenuation Temperature Belle Saison (-) Lallemand/Danstar 77% 59°F - 95°F Notes Cheap Filtered: 1.049 OG to 1.002 FG = 6.2% ABV

Expensive Unfiltered: 1.054 OG to 1.002 FG = 6.9% ABV Download Download this recipe's BeerXML file

For the cheap juice, I went with a generic brand I’ve used numerous times in the past that is the cheapest on the shelf at $3.56 per gallon, while the expensive stuff came from Trader Joe’s and ran me $7.98 per gallon, for a difference of $21.10.

In addition to the obvious disparity in appearance, hydrometer measurements show some difference in OG as well, with the expensive unfiltered juice clocking in a few points higher than the cheap clear stuff.

After sanitizing two 6 gallon PET carboys, I added 1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient to each one.

I then poured the juices into each fermentor and pitched a single pack of Lallemand Belle Saison yeast into each, a process that took approximately 10 minutes,

The filled carboys were placed next to each other in a fermentation chamber controlled to 67˚F/19˚C.

A peak at the fermenting juices 12 hours later revealed both had begun fermenting based on the developing kräusen ring and airlock activity.

At 2 days post-pitch, the ciders were happily bubbling away and I noticed the one made with expensive juice had a kräusen that look strikingly similar to what forms during beer fermentation.

After 8 days, activity had died down in both so I took an initial set of hydrometer measurements that showed both ciders had dropped to 1.002 FG, which was unchanged 2 days later, indicating FG had been reached.

At this point, I added the sulfate and sorbate to both batches, giving them a gentle swirl before leaving them alone overnight. Next, the ciders were crashed to 34˚F/1˚C and left for another day before I proceeded with packaging. The fermented ciders maintained a very stark difference in appearance.

Since we prefer our cider semi-sweet round these here parts, I backsweetened each one with 3 cans of apple juice concentrate, adding it to sanitized kegs prior to transferring.

I swirled the kegs periodically during filling to incorporate the concentrate.

The filled kegs were placed in my cool keezer and burst carbonated at 50 psi for 24 hours before I reduced the gas to 20 psi. After a week of conditioning, the ciders were sparkling and ready to serve, and based on appearance alone, it seemed clear they were different.

| RESULTS |

A total of 20 people of varying levels of experience participated in this experiment. Each participant was served 1 sample of the cider made with cheap filtered juice and 2 samples of the cider made with expensive unfiltered juice in different colored opaque cups then asked to identify the unique sample. At this sample size, 11 tasters (p<0.05) would have had to identify the unique sample in order to reach statistical significance, though only 6 (p=0.70) made the accurate selection, indicating participants in this experiment were unable to reliably distinguish a cider made with cheap filtered juice from one made with expensive unfiltered juice.

My Impressions: This one really got me. From the point of purchasing the juices, I was pretty convinced these ciders would be easily distinguishable based on the fact they looked so different. I did compare the unfermented juices and was surprised with just how similar they tasted, though I thought the unfiltered one had a little more complexity and figured it’d carry through in the finished cider. Once kegged, I compared the samples side by side and, again, felt there was a difference but was caught off guard by the similarity. After witnessing so many tasters make an inaccurate selection on the triangle test, I tried it out for myself 6 times, out which I chose the unique sample twice. For the statistically minded, that’s 1/3, 33.3%, exactly what’s expected from randomly guessing between 3 options. Thankfully, the ciders both turned out delicious!

| DISCUSSION |

There’s a common and understandable belief that “higher end” equates to better quality, which in the case of hard cider typically means juices that are less processed. Indeed, I’d always accepted my preference for ciders made with cheap filtered apple juice as being a sort of Miller Lite of cider, a less complex drink produced for easy mass consumption, while ciders made from nicer juices would please the palates of those with a taste for the finer things in life. It’s for this reason tasters’ inability to reliably distinguish a hard cider made with cheap filtered juice from one made with expensive unfiltered juice is so shocking to me. And I mean that, I did not expect this outcome in the slightest.

When thinking about possible explanations for these results, my first thought was that both were likely produced from sweet table apples, the type commonly snacked on, perhaps even of the same variety. This being the case, the main difference between the juices is that the cheap one was from concentrate, filtered, and had a slightly lower OG. We’ve shown in various xBmts that level of alcohol in beer doesn’t seem to have a huge perceptible impact, and the cheap juice cider was only 0.7% ABV lower than the expensive juice cider. Moreover, based purely on the appearance of the ciders, I presumed the one made with expensive unfiltered juice would have a noticeably heavier mouthfeel, but that just wasn’t the case. In fact, in my own series of 6 triangle tests, a large part of my focus was on body and mouthfeel, but I still only chose the unique sample twice.

Combining my personal experience with the results from this experiment, I can say with confidence I will not be using the expensive unfiltered juice from Trader Joe’s ever again. Not only were the ciders way too similar to justify the expense, but I far preferred the appearance of the cider made with cheap filtered juice. And as much as I enjoy the hard ciders I’ve made over the years, I’m excidered to continue experiment with this delicious drink!

If you have any thoughts about this cider experiment, please do not hesitate to share in the comments section below!

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