But, most significant of all is sugar is added to the fermentation to bring up the final alcohol level of the apple wine. It is essentially apple juice that has gone through the same process as you would making wine. This is a hard apple juice as well, but it is much higher in alcohol. Hard cider is very easy to make and can even be sparkled in beer bottles. It is assumed that if you have raw apple juice it has probably gone hard. It is interesting to note that in most English-speaking countries - other than the U.S. The natural sugars in the apple juice ferment to an alcohol level that runs somewhere around 3% to 6%. This is apple juice or apple cider that has been allowed to ferment. will make the distinction that apple juice has gone through filtration and pasteurization whereas apple cider has not. You can go to some markets in parts of the country and see apple juice and apple cider side by side. In the United States, it means the same as apple juice. So just what is the difference between apple wine and apple cider? The information below should help to clear this up: And to make it more convoluted, sometimes apple cider means just plain ole apple juice. One person may say apple cider, meaning apple wine someone else may say apple cider, meaning hard cider. There is no difference as to how some people use these terms. Before the advent of modern processing, you wouldn’t have to ask.What is the difference between apple wine and apple cider? Is the recipe different? Is the manufacturing procedures different?Īpple wine, apple cider and hard cider are sometimes used to mean the same thing by some people. In short, it seems to me, juice/cider confusion is a recent phenomenon. Two explanations for all this confusion come to mind - either apple processors truly don’t know the difference between cider and juice, or, more likely, have decided to line up behind a wimp definition that enables them to flog off sterile juice in the place of genuine (because unpasteurized) cider. Juice, on the other hand, is a blend of fresh apple squeezings and concentrate. My original informant is out, but another spokesperson, obviously reading from a prepared statement (and no doubt with armed representatives of the Cider Control Board standing beside her), states that her company too makes cider from early harvest apples, contrary to earlier reports. I call back the midwestern bottler (cider = juice). The main difference between the two products is the amount of clarification done in the processing.” Immediately dismissing the distracting second sentence, I focus on the first. However, in the letter itself, my informant blithely states, “We use the first season apples to provide a sharp, tart taste. It includes some photocopied pages from the American Cider Book essentially confirming our conversation about pasteurization. A letter arrives from informant #2 (true cider is unpasteurized). Suspicious events then begin to transpire. The guy I got this from says his company is quite scrupulous about monitoring the acidity of its product and changing the labels accordingly. Therefore, the company claims, it’s possible to make not only frozen cider concentrate, contrary to your assertion, but also “sludgy” - i.e., unfiltered, hence cloudy - apple juice. Thus true cider remains cider after processing because pasteurization doesn’t affect the acid/sugar content. (Source: Washington State outfit that claims to be the country’s largest maker of juice and cider.) Early-harvest apples supposedly have higher acid and lower sugar content, producing a drink with a tangier taste. Cider is made from apples that are picked early. The manufacturers call their product cider in the fall for marketing purposes.ģ. What you buy in the store, in contrast, is pasteurized soon after crushing, preventing fermentation and resulting in a pleasant but kickless taste. Consequently, it ferments over time, giving it a mildly alcoholic kick. (Source: East Coast conglomerate also, the old edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.) The product you buy from roadside stands usually hasn’t been pasteurized. The store-bought stuff is juice, the homemade stuff is cider. In other words, it’s all marketing booshwa. (Source: large midwestern bottler.) Uncle Sam confirms there’s no legal distinction. I’ve checked around with most of the major manufacturers and with various reference books, and the result is I’ve come up with three logical, plausible, but totally contradictory explanations of the difference between cider and apple juice. Offhand you wouldn’t think the cider/juice dichotomy would present a particularly compelling demonstration of this fact, but think again. Science tells us, William, that there are limits to what we can hope to know about the cosmos.
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