A slightly modified get started guide from Drew's Everything Hard Cider Book to make your own hard cider.
The Standard Cider-Making Procedure
This is the basic process that you’ll use for every cider in Everything Hard Cider and almost every other fermentation you can think to perform. This recipe will net you 4 large bottles of inexpensive cider. You can enjoy this cider after 4–8 weeks.
Need to turn over a beer quick? Say in less than 10 days? Drew's here to help you with a few simple tips for getting that beer ready in a hurry
This article is a quck summary/reworking of an article I wrote for the Nov/Dec 2011 issue of Zymurgy. AHA Members can read the whole issue (and issues going back to Jan/Feb 2000!) online here.
Recently I was speaking with a non-brewer friend of mine about high gravity/alcohol beer. He asked me why wine seems to always fall into the 10-15% range while beer is typically 4-7% by volume. His jaw dropped when I told him about beers such as George Mahoney's Frankenale measuring an insane 27% and that Hair of the Dog makes Dave, a beer that holds the dubious high-gravity record at 29% (this is an eis fortified beer). The conversation got me thinking; why is it typically that a solid proletariat beverage like beer has 2-3 times less alcohol than a hoity-toity drink like wine?
