![]() I call back the midwestern bottler (cider = juice). The main difference between the two products is the amount of clarification done in the processing.” Immediately dismissing the distracting second sentence, I focus on the first. However, in the letter itself, my informant blithely states, “We use the first season apples to provide a sharp, tart taste. It includes some photocopied pages from the American Cider Book essentially confirming our conversation about pasteurization. A letter arrives from informant #2 (true cider is unpasteurized). Suspicious events then begin to transpire. The guy I got this from says his company is quite scrupulous about monitoring the acidity of its product and changing the labels accordingly. Therefore, the company claims, it’s possible to make not only frozen cider concentrate, contrary to your assertion, but also “sludgy” - i.e., unfiltered, hence cloudy - apple juice. Thus true cider remains cider after processing because pasteurization doesn’t affect the acid/sugar content. (Source: Washington State outfit that claims to be the country’s largest maker of juice and cider.) Early-harvest apples supposedly have higher acid and lower sugar content, producing a drink with a tangier taste. Cider is made from apples that are picked early. The manufacturers call their product cider in the fall for marketing purposes.ģ. What you buy in the store, in contrast, is pasteurized soon after crushing, preventing fermentation and resulting in a pleasant but kickless taste. Consequently, it ferments over time, giving it a mildly alcoholic kick. (Source: East Coast conglomerate also, the old edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.) The product you buy from roadside stands usually hasn’t been pasteurized. The store-bought stuff is juice, the homemade stuff is cider. In other words, it’s all marketing booshwa. (Source: large midwestern bottler.) Uncle Sam confirms there’s no legal distinction. I’ve checked around with most of the major manufacturers and with various reference books, and the result is I’ve come up with three logical, plausible, but totally contradictory explanations of the difference between cider and apple juice. Offhand you wouldn’t think the cider/juice dichotomy would present a particularly compelling demonstration of this fact, but think again. Follow these simple steps for making fresh apple cider at home.Science tells us, William, that there are limits to what we can hope to know about the cosmos. Easy peasy.Įven without an expensive juicer, we can still pull it off without too much trouble. The pulp is extracted from the raw fruit, but does not filter, leaving a substantial amount of solid matter in the resulting juice. If you’ve ever juiced an apple using a countertop juicer, you’re already making cider. Making your own cider at home is surprisingly easy and doesn’t require bulky equipment. But for most of us, those opportunities are few and far between. Watching the cider extracted from apples mashed with large, traditional presses is the distinct and delightful pleasure of any visit to one of the many “You Pick ‘Em” farms that open their orchards to the public each fall. Usually, our best chance to enjoy fresh apple cider comes with an autumn visit to an orchard. If you can’t see through it, call it cider. Although the difference between apple juice and apple cider is not well defined, most consider cider to be apple juice that has not been sweetened, filtered or pasteurized. Here in the US and most of Canada, we refer to that as “hard” cider and apply the more generic term to the unfermented juice. ![]() For most of the world, the term “cider” refers to a fermented drink made from juice pressed from mashed fruit (usually apples). ![]()
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