Cider
Ingredients
- apple juice/cider - 4 gallons
- yeast - about a teaspoon (I use Fleischman’s Active Dry baking yeast, but brewer’s yeast might work better)
- sugar - 12 cups
- honey, optional
- cloves, optional
- a can or two of frozen apple juice concentrate, optional
- carboy or bucket w/ airlock
Sterilizing your equipment is the first, hardest, and most important step. I scrub everything out and rinse it w/ StarSan.
Once your carboy or bucket is clean, combine sugar, juice, and yeast, as well as honey and cloves to taste.
I don’t know the details, but yeast don’t seem to break down honey in the same way as regular, white sugar. Adding more sugar at this point will make the final product dryer and more alcoholic; adding honey will sweeten it, without affecting the alcohol content too much. You can also add apple juice concentrate at any point in the fermentation process; adding it earlier will tend to increase alcohol content, while adding it later–especially after the yeast have mostly died–will tend to add sweetness to the final product.
Throw on the airlock, and wait for it to quit bubbling. This should take a about two or three weeks.
More info at WikiHow.
Kombucha
Ingredients
- water
- three black tea bags
- sugar - 1/3 cup
- starter kombucha or scoby
- large mason jar
- cheese cloth
Heat five cups of water to a boil.
Remove from heat, and stir in sugar until dissolved.
Add tea bags, cover, and steep for a few hours until the mixture is about room temperature.
Remove tea bags, pour into mason jar, add starter kombucha or scoby.
Cover w/ cheese cloth, and wait a couple of weeks until it starts to smell just a little bit tart or vinegary.
