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| Cider: Making, Using & Enjoying Sweet & Hard Cider, Third Edition | 
 enlarge | Authors: Annie Proulx, Lew Nichols
Publisher: Storey Publishing, LLC
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy New: $8.00
You Save: $6.95 (46%)
New (33) Used (15) from $6.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  12 reviews
Sales Rank: 61556
Media: Paperback
Edition: 3
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 8.8 x 6 x 0.6
ISBN: 1580175201
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.26
UPC: 037038175202
EAN: 9781580175203
ASIN: 1580175201
Publication Date: September 8, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Never Read-may have shelf or handling wear to cover or edges- publishers mark- Good Copy- I ship FAST!
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| Customer Reviews:
| Showing reviews 1-5 of 12 | | NEXT » |
 Useful August 28, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
We used this to brew, but with some brewing experience and a fair sized orchard to work with. Also a delight to read.
All the answers March 11, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Talk about a breath of fresh air! Our retirement to orchard country left us wondering what to do with the buckets of apples from the trees on our acreage ... and Proulx and Nichol's book gave us all the answers.
It's an easy cover-to-cover read in layman's language, yet it's also good for reference (the many tabs I've installed in our copy make it look like a porcupine).
Whether you're a novice or an old-timer at cider-making, this excellent information-packed book should be in your library.
Recommended for homebrewers interested in farmhouse cider August 20, 2007
8 out of 9 found this review helpful
[Review written in Jul 2005]
From a home winemaking standpoint, this book is fairly solid offering - as evidenced by the fact that it's now reached it's 3rd edition (as of this reading, I only own copies of the 1st and 2nd editions).
The authors do a good job of covering all of the essential bases on this topic ... including apple cultivation, the selection of apple varietal blends for making various types of cider, an overview of the pressing and brewing process, an overview of common cider & sanitation problems, how to bottle, etc. I was also impressed by the reasonable level of competence demonstrated in their sections on sulfiting and pH/Acid balancing - topics that all too many amateurs (and more than a few novice pros) gloss over, or naievely (and maddeningly) avoid altogether.
I was blessed with having grown up with a local {fresh-sweet} cidery within easy driving distance, and I've made my own hard ciders and cysers on more than a few occasions ... and this book was very helpful when I was learning the ropes.
I only have a few minor complaints:
1) PERRY: It would have required only minimal effort to expand to book to also cover perry (cider made from pears).
2) NON-DRY SPARKLING HARD CIDER: Most homebrewers who make sparkling cider for the first time invariably wish to retain some residual sweetness in their finished product. Commercial brewers have access to techniques like glycol-chilled centrifuges, large-scale plate filtration, and chaptization combined with force carbonation. Homebrewers on the otherhand, who attempt to bottle a semi-dry cider with the usual 'classic' method of adding priming sugar to a freshly fermented semi-dry cider frequently end up playing Russian roulette with bottles that begin exploding after a few days/weeks/months. It's not pretty. I dont remember (it's been a few years since my last reading of the book) if the earlier editions included information on plate filtration and force carbonation, or, if such was absent, if it's since been added to the 3rd edition. The bottom line is that without force carbonation, the only type of sparkling hard cider you can make with any degree of reliability is bone dry.
3) MINIMUM ORDERS: Prospective homebrewers who approach a local cidery with a request for a custom pressing of a custom blend of apples are usually greeted with either blank stares or with a polite nod, followed by an explanation that they have to meet a certain minimum order size. In the case of my local cidery, the minimum order they'll accept for a custom pressing is 100 gallons ... which far exceeds the capacity of most home brewers (who are usually interested in 5-15 gals a pop). The authors can, and should, have given readers a polite heads up on such things, so that they can be prepared for it and line up some fellow homebrewers to do a group buy-in/brew-in. It's a hard hobby for suburbanites like me. I'm sure I wouldn't have the same problem if I lived in more rural areas ... particularly places like Vermont, Southern England, and Normandy France, all of whom have strong cidermaking traditons.
4) PASTEURIZATION: I dont recall if the authors covered the trend adequately in their earlier editions, and I dont know if they addressed it adequately in their latest edition, but there's a growing problem confronting prospective homemakers of small-batch hard cider. In recent years, in response to a damnably lawsuit happy public, many local cideries have stopped selling unpasteurized fresh sweet-cider to the general public ... most cideries pasturize their cider prior to sale now. Here's an example of a local cidery's announcement. Unfortunately for homebrewers like me, the pasteurization process weakens/mutes (or destroys completely, depending on the method used) many of the delicate flavor nuances that don't emerge from a sweet cider until AFTER you ferment off most of the sugar. It's like playing a scratch-n-sniff game ... you sometimes don't know if the result is good until weeks/months *after* you ferment off the sugar masking all the fine nuances.
In any case, even though (if I recall) the authors gloss over a few minor areas, they do give you most of the tools you need to make great cider. For those who've never had the pleasure of experiencing it, the difference between a hard cider made from unpasteurized juice (from custom blended single varietal apples), as compared to that made from pastaurized juice from generic all-purpose 'sweet' cider blends is akin to the difference between a fine artisan cheese and an insipid block of velveeta. It's worth the effort.
Bottom line: I can firmly recommend this book to any homebrewers who wish to experiment with cider. It's a good choice, for both amateur and hardcore (pun intended) brewers alike,
Outstanding Reference August 1, 2007
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
The book on cider making by Annie Prolux has been extremely helpful and a lot of fun to read. The author starts with a step-by-step outline of the process, so you can 'jump right in', but then proceeds with lots of additional information, depending on how sophisticated you want to be about the process. She supplements with pictures and tables where necessary. As a homebrewer, I really appreciated her discussion of the chemistry of the fermentation process and the different add-ins. After reading the book, I feel very comfortable approaching the Fall apple season!
 Brewers: avoid this book! November 26, 2006
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
I purchased this book as an experienced homebrewer interested in branching out (I also bought The Compleat Meadmaker, which is excellent and helpful). I was *sorely* disappointed. It has nothing of value to teach about brewing of hard ciders. It does have lots of Foxfire-type info on building a cider press, planting an orchard, choosing cultivars, etc. But there is no real guidance for fermenting cider beverages.
If you have a farm and want to press sweet cider, this would seem to be a good book. But if you are interested in "something a little harder," look elsewhere (wish I knew where!).
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