Craft Cider Making - Andrew Lea

Craft Cider Making is a definitive guide to artisan cider-making. Written by Andrew Lea, a leading authority on cider making with 20 years' experience as a hobby cider maker. Andrew is food biochemist, who worked for many years at the Long Ashton Research Station (The National Fruit & Cider Institute).

This 3rd edition book is an invaluable guide to making good cider and apple juice, as well as growing apple trees. Whether you have a couple of trees in your back garden or several acres of orchard this is the book for you!

The book encompasses all aspects of cider making including...

• Cider making history
• Selection of equipment
• Choice of fruit trees, their cultivation and orchard management
• Techniques of juicing and fermentation including the use of yeast

Further sections of the book include:

• Customising cider - blending, techniques for producing sparkling cider including carbonation, bottle conditioning and the 'champagne method', cask conditioning and the production of sweet ciders including the French and English tradition of 'keeving'.
• When things go wrong - problem identification and problem solutions including what to do with 'stuck' fermentations, 'off' flavours, hazes & deposits and information about fining and filtration.
• Apple juice making, preservation and storage
• Cider vinegar production
• Perry making

The book includes photographs, a helpful index, and there are useful tables including ...

• Composition of apple juice
• Vintage cider apple cultivars and their properties
• Sugar content / specific gravity / potential alcohol
• Addition of sulphur dioxide / Campden tablets
• CO2 pressure & bottling advice
• Cider fining with bentonite & gelatine