Best Frozen Concentrate for hard apple cider

I want to do a simple and cheap hard apple cider. I have used apple wine base with jug apple juice in the past with very good results. I want to go cheap this round…the wine base is pricey. Any opinions out there on the best frozen concentrate for hard cider? I have Kroger, Whole Foods, Fresh Market and Sprouts as my main local stores. Also some independent and local grocers, and the usual varieties of ethnic markets you normally see a 1 mil +metro area.

Just about any will be fine as long as it doesn’t contain preservatives. The one time I made cider from store bought I think I used Mott’s off the shelf. Turned out fine.

Cheers,

Ron

CThe best is generally the stuff on sale. That said I like to drink apple juice in the morning and I have grown a liking to the price chopper all natural, it’s unstrained so that may add a little something but I’ve not tried it but I’ve made plenty out of the regular stuff. I did a 4:1 apple/cran store bought this year

I have used the frozen concentrate brand Old Orchard. You will want to add much less water than the instructions on the can to get a higher SG. I have tried the blends with raspberry, pomegranate, cherry too. This brand has no high fructose corn syrup.

So i have never made cider. After buying the frozen blend, what else do i need to make a batch? And how much water do i add?

With concentrate you can make a stronger cider if you want. Add half the water called for on the label and check the gravity. Add enough water to get the gravity/ abv you want. I use British ale yeast but US05 works good also

Had to bring this post’ back up… Now it seems some of my band mates’ wives really like the apple cider I have on tap… The keg has hit hard last night… Thats all good to me… So I will need to do this to keep some for “happy hour” in the hood… Do any of you still employ this method… Tell me a little more about this and how it turns out… Even the cider with other added fruits too. Sneezles61

In a pinch I’ve grabbed some jugs of store bought apple juice and mixed in some mango or peach juice to make cider. Add in some cranberry juice if you like it tart.

Look around in the juice aisle alot of the organic fruit juice is thicker with pulp adds some body

I see some that don’t have any added whatever’s… I suspect that’ll be the juice I’ll get… 2 bucks for the frozen concentrate… I’ll want to see what the OG is… I’m not sure I want to buy a dozen jugs, 1/2 gallon each to make 5.5 gallons… I’ll play with other fruit juices too… Sneezles61

I bought 5 gallons of juice a couple of weeks ago at our local grocery store… Its done fermenting now… I’ll keg and allow it to clear… I’m curious how the sample will taste… Time to have the guys in the band over for happy hour…s… Sneezles61

Hit it with gelatin… forced carbed… cloudy, but I don’t think I could tell the difference from all those apples I squished last fall Sneezles61
EDIT… This is sooo simple… even a caveman can make this! Sneezles61
Edit, the EDIT… Making cider from the store boughten is on the same plane as extract brewing… REALLY!

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