How hard cider is made
Cider apples are mashed to a pulp and pressed, and what runs out is fermented cool and slow to keep the aroma.
- stations
- 7
- things upstream
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- raw sources
- 20
- steps from the ground
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The short version
Hard cider is fermented apple juice. Apples are ground into pulp and pressed, and the juice is treated and fermented with yeast. A cool, slow fermentation preserves delicate aromas. The cider is racked off its yeast, matured, blended, and bottled, often with a little added sugar for sparkle.
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Grind the apples
Apples are scratted, which means ground to a coarse pulp, by a mill. Cider makers use bittersweet and sharp cider apples, culinary apples or a mix.
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Press out the juice
The pulp is pressed, traditionally in layers separated by cloth or straw, and today by a belt press. The leftover solids, called pomace, are fed to farm animals or composted.
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Treat the juice
Makers may blend juices, check acidity, and add a little sulfur dioxide to hold back spoilage microbes. Nitrogen nutrient may be added for the yeast.
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Ferment cool and slow
Yeast turns the sugar into alcohol and carbon dioxide. Cider is fermented at a low temperature, which slows things and saves aroma that would blow off in a warmer tank.
4–16 °C
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Rack and rest
The young cider is racked, or siphoned, into a clean vessel to leave the yeast behind. It then matures in the vat, sometimes for years.
three months up to three years
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Blend and sweeten
Vats made from different apples are blended to suit the market. A fully fermented cider is dry, so a small dose of sugar sets the sweetness and the sparkle.
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Bottle or keg
Cider is filtered if a clear product is wanted, then bottled, canned or kegged. Higher-quality sparklers use the same second-fermentation method as champagne.
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Worth repeating
- Britain and Ireland together have the world's highest per capita cider consumption and the largest cider-producing companies.
- Ice cider, from apples frozen before or after harvest, was developed in Quebec and runs at 9 to 13% alcohol by volume.
- In the US and Canada, alcoholic cider is called hard cider to tell it apart from sweet cider, which is simply apple juice.
- The first recorded reference to cider dates to Julius Caesar's attempt to invade Britain in 55 BCE.
Back to the ground
Follow every input upstream and hard cider starts as these 20 raw sources.
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Sources
Cite this page: "How hard cider is made." Assembly Line, 2026-11-03. https://assemblyline.org/make/hard-cider