I bought a lovely container of fresh unfiltered cider and wanted to play with making hard cider from it. It's a whole lot cheaper doing it yourself.

The first time I did it, years ago, I used wild yeasts from the air. My technique was to open the jug, let in air thereby, and close the jug. I let it sit a few months and voila - hard cider.

This time I'd like to try something a little more involved, but not by much. I will be using bread yeast and a plastic bag as a air filter. This costs only as much as bread yeast (Under a dollar) and the cider. I have plastic bags.

I also picked up a container of apple juice, filtered but not from concentrate, to make simultaneously as a contrast.

Neither the cider nor the juice have preservatives in it.

Here is the link to the procedure I will use to make the hard cider.

Supposedly, using wild yeast is a crapshoot with what you get. Bread yeast is slightly more controlled, although still not considered the best way to do a brew. The best way is to pick up actual wine yeast or champagne yeast. Which i don't have right now and can't afford anyway.

I figure i can try the easy cheap bread yeast recipe from that link (on Eat the Weeds) and see how it goes with both cider and juice. I can always compare with an attempt to use wine yeasts later.

And you know I will be documenting the whole thing!

Ahh, I was wondering when you would get going with more brewing at home!
This is another area I have done some experimenting. I still make homemade (not from extract) soda with the kids. Basically its juices or teas with a little yeast in a bottle.

I did hard cider before by buying a big jug of organic apple juice, tossing in brewing yeast, and putting a water trap on it.
My folks used to put balloons over there jugs to seal out contaminates while allowing gas to escape.
Dried brewers yeast can cost less than $1 a packet, and if you are brewing by the gallon, you should be able to get 4 or 5 batches a packet. I know not all brewing shops sell the same stuff at the same price, and many places don't even have brewing shops. For your experiments and the nature of what you are trying to do, I think starting with bread yeast will lead to more interesting results. I know I will be following along! I haven't used bread yeast for soda since my high school days, and never tried it for alcoholic beverages. I am curious what your actual results will be.
I have made wine from various fruit juices, and did a lovely looking wild rose petal wine before. Loads of fun!
Also, for hard cider, have you considered pressing crab apples? I saw a show in PBS that talked about the history of apples. Since Johnny appleseed spread seed grown trees, many of the apples were crab apples. So, early Americans made them into hard cider since they weren't good for eating. Sounds like a frugal way to make do with what you have, or can get cheap or free.

Lisa, i've read about the balloons, but i don't have balloons. I do have plastic bags.

I would love to try hard cider with crab apples. I have a crab apple tree, but since it's a year old I don't expect it to produce anything for a few seasons yet. Maybe a little apple here and there.

I really want to hear about the fermented soda! What? Haven't heard of this.

Also, your wild rose petal wine? Please share the details!

I totally get using what you have on hand! Let us know how all of it works!

Personally, I keep a log book - like a science notebook of my brewing at home. In the last several years, it has been limited to soda.

I learned how to make soda in a high school science class. The basic process is a sweet liquid gets mixed with yeast and immediately put into clean bottles. It sits at room temp for 3-6 days depending on ingredients (citrus slows fermentation). At this point, the soda is ready. It should be chilled and drank, or put into a fridge to stop the fermentation. The fermentation at this point has only produced CO2, but there is no escape for any excess gas. If it isn't chilled down to stop the process, bottles can start to explode. Because of this, doing small one gallon batches that get drank up is the way to go.
Brewing shops sell root beer extract, ginger ale extract, etc. It is like making brownies from a box - super simple. These have less sugar than store bought sodas, but the ingredients often do have artificial flavors, and I think they limit creativity.

My favorite soda making book http://www.amazon.com/Homemade-Root-Beer-Soda-Pop/dp/1580170528/ref=cm_cr-mr-title

For the wild rose petal wine, I went out when the wild roses were in bloom and picked at least 2 colanders full of petals. I made a tea from the petals, added a touch of lemon juice, allowed it to cool and put in a one gallon bottle with some wine yeast and a water trap. I allowed it to ferment and bottled it into clear glass wine bottles. I think I got 2 or 3. I allowed it to age for about 2 months. The pink color was beautiful sitting in the bottles, yet it had almost no flavor. The bottles were great conversation pieces. If I were to repeat I would use even more petals, or try to find an organic source of strong scented and flavored roses to use.

My ex husband is/was really into home brewing. He had a shop for a little while that I did a lot of work in - from doing home experiments to stocking shelves to helping customers and even doing product demos and classes.

Buying various homebrew products can be significantly cheaper than buying alcoholic beverages from the store.
Now, getting truly creative and old school like you are trying to do with the kvass and the soda I feel is becoming a bit of a lost art form. Most fermented beverages were made with whatever people had, in the materials and vessels that they had. I swear I hear the German purity Law quoted all of the time as marketing scam that limits what people can do. Beer making contests where people try to match or come up with perfect beer for a defined style may show brewing skill, but there is no art or creativity to it! Wine was made where grapes grew, beer where grains grew, meads where there was a mix of grains and honey, well, you get the idea!
So, I love how you are using what you have on hand rather than getting a ton of junk that you use a few times and then put in a closet. There is a place for hobbies for hobbies sake, but having someone experiment like this nowadays is becoming altogether to rare.

AKlisa, that books seems pretty cool. What is switchel?

I'm not a soda drinker...if you let the sodas sit with a water trap, would they become alcoholic?

The wild rose petal wine sounds like one of those ideas that sounds better than how the product actually turns out.

What is the German purity Law?

Thanks for your nice comments on reviving old skills/recipes, and on making do. I really find the whole topic of old skills fascinating. I look for old books at garage sales and such that describe old skills. These are usually things everyone knew how to do at the time.

That people drank basically kvass everyday for thousands of years and today no one knows about bread beer is fascinating to me. And switchel sounds vaguely familiar, even though I don't have a clue what it is. It seems like something the old timers used to drink?

It would be a pity to lose the old skills that have served humanity well. Even things like dressing game would confound me, unless I did a lot of research. Cut the carcass where? Take out the what? How do i get the skin/feathers off? Surely these are things a child from prior times could handle on their own!

switchels are basically vinegar type drinks. They aren't even always fizzy. Like juice and/or teas with vinegar mixed in, I think for preservation and safety.

Yep, you got the idea on the difference between pop and wine/beer/alcohol fermentation. Yummy juice with yeast straight in bottles makes pop. Let it ferment in a situation where it won't explode, and then you get alcohol.

German purity law is from way back in 1516 when Germany decided to define beer as water, barley and hops. The purpose was to protect consumers from getting all sorts of seriously dangerous stuff placed in their beer that they were purchasing. I hear this thing quoted all the time today at brewing events and even in ads for brewing stuff - and it doesn't really make sense anymore. It doesn't even list yeast, since nobody really knew about it yet. I think it limits people to making beverages in neat little defined ways, like thinking "I will make beer; It will have grains and water and yeast and some hops"

Yeah, we are losing a lot of skills that I think could help people to be more frugal and know how to really be independent. It is an awesome confidence booster to show a kid some of these old skills. Kids learn something they know has practical value, which means a lot.

hmmmm, vinegar drinks. That actually sounds yummy. Since I don't like sweet drinks, it might be exactly up my alley. I am going to have to research switchel next! Thanks for the idea.

Here is a cool idea for turning the pomace (leftover apple or pear squeezings) into apple cider vinegar.

I don't have pomace, but i do have leftover corings and bad spots on a bunch of apples and pears that i chopped up for dehydrating the other day. I wasn't sure what to do with this sort of waste besides composting it. I was thinking of boiling it down to a syrup, but was worried about the bad spots. Vinegar would take care of that though!

I'm pleased with this idea and am going to start this right now by putting my 'pomace' into water and covering with a cloth.

Cool! I waited until this evening to smell the cider vinegar. It smells wonderful already. There are bubbles and a sharp sweet scent in the container.

It's almost too easy. I don't know why we don't grow up doing this stuff. Except maybe for Susan.

Cool! My apple pomace and water mixture is smelling more sharp and less sweet today. I have family out visiting this week, so probably by the time they go, I will have vinegar!

I need to find a nice glass jug for this. I usually collect good glass containers right out of the town's glass recycling bins. Pickle jars, jelly jars and the cheap big round wine jugs are my favorite.