Nothing transitions my energy perfectly into the fall season like homemade apple cider.
One of my favorite activities to do during fall is to visit the apple orchards while the apples are in season. It’s such a fun activity to pick fresh yummy apples with family or friends. AND I’m always an advocate for supporting the local community.
Of course you can always eat the delicious apples on their own or you can enjoy them in the delicious form of apple cider.
There’s just something so special about having warm apple cider on a chilly fall day, cuddled up on the couch watching a movie.
This apple cider recipe is non-alcoholic, however you can always add alcohol if you’d like. I highly suggest using aged spirits like whiskey, brandy, or rum for this recipe because I feel those spirits would accentuate those beautiful spices and apple flavors.
Important tip! Apple cider is essentially just spiced apple juice. The more spices you add, the more spiced your apple cider will turn out. I personally like a little spice so I added more in this recipe, but of course if you want less spice flavors just add a smaller amount of the spices than what is listed in this recipe.
With all that in mind, let’s go ahead and jump into this apple cider recipe!
contents
How to make homemade apple cider
what you need
Apples: I used six apples for this recipe. I suggest using a variety of apples to give the apple cider more depth. I chose to use three honey crisp and three granny smith apples.
Oranges: I used two oranges for this recipe. The oranges bring out and accentuate the sweet flavors from the apples.
Cinnamon Sticks: I used about three large cinnamon sticks I got from my local Mexican grocery store.
Lemon: I added one lemon to this recipe. This bright citrus brings out more of those tart flavors from the apples.
Cloves: Like said in the intro section of this blog post, I don’t mind a little extra spice. I may have went a little crazy but I added about a palm size of cloves.
Sugar of Choice: You can use any kind of sugar to sweeten and tie all the flavors in this recipe together. I used 1/4 cup of brown sugar.
Optional Additional Spices: If you would like a larger variety of spices in your apple cider, ginger, allspice, star anise, and nutmeg are some great options.
Water: As juicy as apples already are, we still need to add water to make a large batch to share with our loved ones. I used 48 ounces of water.
Large Bowl(s): This is useful for the filtering step.
Strainers: We need strainers to filter out all the fruit and spices during the final steps of completing this apple cider. You can get by with using just one strainer. Simply just pour the apple cider through the strainer as many times as you need to filter out the solid pieces. OR you can copy my technique and use at least two strainers so you don’t have to repeat this step multiple times.
Ladle (optional): With such a large batch being made of this apple cider, it can be helpful for the the filtering step to first scoop the fruits and spices instead of just pouring the heavy batch over the strainer.
Large empty bottles: At the end of this process, each batch makes a little over 750ml of apple cider. So, you’ll definitely need at least two empty bottles to store the batch in.
Feel free to adjust the size of this batch to fit your needs wether you want a smaller or larger batch.
How to make apple cider
Part 1: preparing the ingredients
Cut and quarter six apples. Make sure to take off the apple stems and pick out the visible apple seeds (if you end up having the apple seeds in the mixture later, no worries. We will end up straining them out later).
In addition to the apples, cut and quarter two oranges and one lemon.
part 2: assembly
In a big pot, add in the quartered apples, oranges, and lemon.
Next, add in you apple cider spices. I used cinnamon (I cracked them in half), cloves, one nutmeg (cut in half), and a few star anise.
Lastly, add enough water to cover the top of the apples and spices. I used 48 ounces of water.
part 3: Let em cook!
Cover the pot and set the heat high until the water boils.
Once the water has boiled, turn the heat down to low simmer. Let the batch simmer for two hours or until apples are soft.
Once the two hours have passed, uncover the pot and let the batch simmer for an additional 30 minutes.
Once the 30 minutes have passed, turn off the heat.
part 4: finishing touches
Using a couple of strainers, filter out the apples, spices, and fruits several times.
Here is exactly how I filtered out the solid ingredients!
Stack two strainers on top of a large bowl. Using the ladle, scoop spoonfuls of the batch onto the top strainer.
From here, just let gravity do the work and allow the liquid apple cider to fall through the strainers and into the bowl.
All of the solid ingredients should remain in the strainers.
After you see all the liquid from each scoop has reached the bowl, you can either take the solid ingredients and throw them in the trash OR you can place them in a different bowl/container temporarily.
I personally placed the solid ingredients in the other temporary bowl because I knew I wanted to repeat the filtration technique in order to get as much of the liquid extracted from this batch as possible.
Repeat this step multiple times until the entire batch is transferred from the pot and the liquids and solids are separated.
If you chose to place the solid ingredients in a separate bowl like me, now is the time to repeat the entire filtering step. Again this is optional.
While the liquid apple cider is still warm, add in 1/4 cup of your sugar of choice. Stir until the sugar has been dissolved.
Congrats, your delicious homemade apple cider has been completed!!
how to drink apple cider
Feel free to sip and enjoy the apple cider while it’s still warm. However, if you want to enjoy it later, continue to follow the next steps.
Let the apple cider cool.
To store the apple cider, pour the cooled batch into large bottles for storage.
The apple cider will last in the fridge for 3-7 days in a sealed air tight container.
When you are ready to sip and serve the apple cider on it’s own, you can drink the cider while it’s cold or you can warm the cider on the stove or in the microwave.
If you want to get creative, you could also enjoy this apple cider in a cocktail!
Here’s a cocktail that uses apple cider!
