A Question with hard cider

[dartedplus]

I know we are all about beer here, but I'm making some hard cider and I want to add some raisins to the cider during its final ferment, and I need to know if I need to sterilize the raisins in any way, and what I should do to accomplish this. Any suggestions on this matter would be greatly appreciated.

[vtbrewer]

what i do is boil my raisins and add the water and raisins into my wort...this has seemed to work well for me...another method that i have heard but not done is add the raisin to the wort and then use camphor tabs to sterilize the whole thing...

[dartedplus]

Thanks for the info, I dont really want to add to the volume, but i guess i can boil just a small amount of water to add to the cider.

[vtbrewer]

don't need to boil much just enough to sterilze the raisins, the only reason i say add the liquid is that the sugars you boiled out are a good addition

[dartedplus]

Thanks, I thought that would be the case. Right now I just need to come up with 2 more 1 gallon jugs. Then I'll be all set. Thanks, Ed.

[warda]

Could you supply a recipe for hard cider. I have wanted to try some for a while but have no idea where to start.

[dartedplus]

All I did was take my fermenting bucket to a local apple farm and asked them to fill it with 5 gallons of fresh cider. The "pressmaster" was more than willing to oblige, and the next day my bucket was full. He gave me a blend of sweet and tart, I dont remember exactly which kinds of apples he used any more. After I brought it home, I had to let it warm up for a day or so because he had it in the reefer. I used wyeast english cider yeast and after 5-6 weeks, it still isnt done fermenting. A couple of weeks ago, I took a couple of gallons and put it into 1 gallon jugs with some raisins, some dark, some light. Just to try to get a little different flavor out of the batch. I think it is almost done, so after I bottle it, I'll let you know how it came out. If you want to contact me ....edthedart@netscape.net
good luck and ask them to NOT blast your cider with the ultraviolet.