The holidays are right around the corner. We’ve got Christmas and New Year’s coming up, and our wild yeast hard cider is ready just in time for the season. Learn how to make this wild yeast hard cider.

How to Make Wild Yeast Hard Cider Video

If you would like to view this as a video, click play below.

What is wild yeast hard cider?

It is called wild yeast hard cider because it uses the natural yeast that is already on and in the fruit for fermentation. You could not do this method if you bought apple juice from the store. Apple juice from the store is normally pasteurized and doesn’t have any of the natural yeast left in it, so in order to make hard cider you would need to add yeast.

Yeast is essential for fermentation. Yeast is the magic! As the yeast feeds on the sugars, it produces alcohol. It is what puts the “hard” in hard cider.
This wild yeast method is super easy, and there is only two ingredients: fresh apple juice and sugar! We did not use any chemicals or anything like that to stop our fermentation as you will see with some others that make hard apple cider. We wanted to make ours an all-natural hard cider.

Clean Equipment and Juice Fresh Apples

Of course, you want to start out with all clean materials. Some people use a solution that you can buy online to clean their jars and their equipment, but I just used really hot, soapy water to clean and hot water to rinse well. I feel like that worked for us.

Our dear neighbor, Barb, has Haralson apple trees. Haralson apples are, in our opinion, perfectly flavored and have many uses. These apples are juicy and hover somewhere between tart and sweet, which means these work well for juicing, baking, canning and freezing. A great apple all around. Barb had excess apples this year, so we juiced about 50-60 pounds. We ended up with 4 gallons of fresh apple juice. About two and a half of those gallons were used to make the wild yeast hard cider.

First Fermentation

There was a lot of foam in our homemade apple juice, so we wanted to let that settle a little bit before straining it off (plus, time was not on our side!). We capped off the jugs and burped them (took the cap off and put it back on) every day a couple of times a day for 2-3 days. Fresh apple juice starts to ferment immediately, so our jugs needed to release that pressure. Once that foam got settled down a little bit, we went ahead and filtered it through some cheesecloth to get rid of more of that foam and any solids that were still present.

Once we filtered it through the cheesecloth, we bottled it back up to continue the fermentation process and this time added some airlocks on the top. Airlocks work with just a little bit of water in them, and are designed to let out the gas while keeping a seal on the containers so that no other yeast or bacteria can get inside while it ferments. We sat these in a cool, dark location. If you have any rooms in your house where you can keep the light off and door shut for long periods of time, perhaps a closet that doesn’t get used often, that would be perfect.

We let them ferment for about two weeks, and then pulled them back out and did another filter, because we want a nice clear hard cider. This time, we filtered through a cotton dishtowel with a tighter weave. This worked, but not completely well. It took FOREVER! So, next time we will look for a different fine mesh filter.

Second (final) Fermentation

Once we had it all filtered into a food-grade bucket, we noticed that the flavor at this stage was really good, so we decided to go ahead and add some sugar for the final fermentation. We added a half cup of sugar per gallon of cider and bottled it back into the jugs, put the airlocks back on, and set it back in the cool, dark room for another three weeks.

When you’re working with wild yeast, it’s going to be a little bit different each time, but this time we noticed that there were hardly any bubbles coming into the airlock. It wasn’t letting off much, if anything at all after about three weeks. We were almost sure the fermentation had stopped. The main reason you want to be pretty sure the fermentation has stopped, is that when you bottle it, pressure is going to build up if there is still active yeast. Your bottles could explode and not just make a mess, but may also damage whatever is around it – including you. We did not want exploding bottles, so after bottling, we did some checking (more on that coming up).

How to Measure Fermentation and Alcohol Content

Another way to have a good idea that the fermentation has likely stopped, is to use a tool called a hydrometer. This tool measures the specific gravity of a liquid and can give you an idea of what stage of fermentation your cider has reached and also the alcohol content of your final product. The number we are going to be looking for is 1.000. If you measure your cider and it falls under 1.000 (that would be toward the top of the hydrometer scale), you can assume that your fermentation has stopped. This process isn’t foolproof, but you can have a pretty good idea.

A hydrometer can also give you a measure of how much alcohol is in your cider. If you want to know the amount of alcohol in your final product, you would need to take a reading before fermentation and another before you start bottling (after fermentation). The difference would help you figure out the alcohol content in your cider. We didn’t have a hydrometer when we first started this project, so unfortunately we couldn’t complete this step. But you can bet we will next time!

Bottling Hard Cider

One of the tools that we used to bottle our cider was a siphon. A siphon helps to get the cider out of the jug without any of the sediment that has settled to the bottom. The sediment contains dead yeast which can change the taste of your cider. When siphoning the cider from the jug into bottles, it is best to keep the bottles lower than the jug, because the process relies a lot on gravity. This way, when you pump the siphon and get the liquid flowing from one place to another, it will be one continuous flow without having to continue pumping.

We bottled ours into some recycled glass drink bottles – a great way to cut down on waste if that’s something you are interested in. But if you purchase bottles, buy dark ones because the light that could get in would degrade your hard cider more quickly. Our recycled bottles were clear, so what we decided to do was store them in the box they had originally come in as a way to keep the light out – problem solved! Once our bottles were filled, we capped them off. I had bought a bulk bag of standard-size bottle caps and washed them in hot, soapy water before use, and we used a bottle-cap press Dan had from previous brewing experiences to seal the bottles.

Checking for Signs of Fermentation

To make sure fermentation had stopped (to avoid the dreaded exploding bottles), we periodically checked the carbonation in the bottles. To do this, we checked one bottle after a couple days, and there was not a lot of fizz when we opened it. We also couldn’t see any bubbles, which are a sure sign of carbonation, so we were feeling pretty confident.

We sealed the bottle back up, and after a couple more days we checked a different bottle which turned out similar results. At this point, we decided the fermentation was over and put the bottles in storage. If we do eventually find when we open a bottle, there is getting to be a lot of carbonation, what we will do is burp all the bottles, recap them, and pasteurize them.

Pasteurizing to Stop Fermentation

Fill a large pot (like one you would use for canning) with water to where it would just cover the fill line in your cider bottles, but do not yet add the bottles. It is helpful to know that yeast dies at 130°F. At 190° F, the alcohol in your finished product is affected. So for this process, heat the water to 180°F and use a thermometer to be sure of the temperature. Then, turn the heat off and put the bottles in. Just like canning, you do not want active heat touching the bottom of the pan and the bottom of your bottles – make sure the heat is off! After putting the bottles in, put the lid on the pot and let sit for ten minutes. That should heat the cider enough to stop the yeast from being active. After that is done, remove the bottles, let them cool, and store.

This wild yeast hard cider should keep for a year or more, but it is so good that it will be gone in no time. I wish I could hand some through the screen for a taste test!

We appreciate the time you spend with us, and if you’ve learned something valuable, go ahead and subscribe to our channel on YouTube for the latest updates. We post weekly videos about our homesteading experience and journey to self-sufficiency, and we would love to take you along for the ride. Have a great day, and happy cider-ing!