If you guys don’t know what those are for, you haven’t been reading this blog. LOL! It is meant for making some delicious hard apple cider - Apfelwein. Yes, after the little taste test by my friends, it has been a great hit. Now everyone is asking me to make them some. So being a great guy, I am very much obliged to make Apfelwein for them. And I am fully booked till Christmas as making the Apfelwein requires quite a lot time waiting for it to ferment and mature.If you aren’t into homebrewing, you will not understand the time and the effort needed to get the correct temperature for making the Apfelwein. It seems easy enough, but remember, getting 24 litres of Apple Juice back home within a car is very tedious. And I am getting old.

Anyway, the main reason why I bought the Ceres Apple Juice is because NTUC is having offer for the Ceres brand. So it cost about S$1.80 per 1 litre pack of juice. That is much cheaper than the usual price of S$2.10. Remember, I will be making 24 litres of the cider, so the amount saved is quite signifcant. However, I will definite not limit myself to just the Ceres Apple Juice. The reason is because I am afraid that just using one brand of apple juice, I might not get the correct taste for my Apfelwein. Might be too sour or too bitter depending on the type of juice used. So it would be more prudent to use 2 or 3 different brands of apple juice, like what I did before and hope that the different flavours will mask out the unpleasant ones. I think another brand which I will be using should be the VeCool Fuji Apple Juice as well as Harvey Fresh Apple Juice.  I really like the Harvey Fresh Apple Juice. It taste very “appley” and even though there is no sugar added, it taste quite sweet. It is made from crushed apples, unlike the rest of the Apple Juice which are usually made from Apple Concentrate. The VeCool Fuji Apple Juice is another great choice because it is supposed to be made from Fuji Apples, which is one of my favourite fruits. I just love Fuji Apples!

And this time, I will be making all of the Apfelwein carbonated. Unless the resulting Apfelwein is going to be sweet, there is no other way about it, especially when we are talking about those “wines” made from juices. There will always be some residual sourness in the cider if you ferment it dry and although it is not really extremely unpleasant, it can be be considered as an off-flavour. And not everyone likes sour. So, the fizz will help mask the sourness. Furthermore, carbonation helps to bring out the aroma of the apple cider. I never considered myself any expert in ciders, but I have to agree that drinking ciders carbonated is a lot better than drinking a still cider.