We are used to making apples from jam, making mashed potatoes and jellies, closing compotes or adding them as a filling to cakes, but these are not all possible uses of the fruit, so you can try making tasty and healthy cider as an alternative. What kind of drink and how to make it at home - read on.
Meet the drink
Apple cider dubbed fragrant and delicious drink, the strength of which is about 8 degrees. It is well invigorating, toning and at the same time it is drunk quite easily.
If you have more pears or garden berries, then you can use them instead of apples, although real apple wine (so often called cider) is prepared solely on the basis of this fruit. 
Most wine connoisseurs believe that apple cider first appeared in France, although they also have opponents who claim to mention it in ancient Egyptian history. Whatever it was, but the history of this wine has more than a hundred years.
Did you know? According to the generally accepted opinion, apple cider appeared in the XI century and was invented by Charlemagne. However, until recently (up to the 19th century), it was considered rather a drink for the lower strata of society, but not for the nobility.
The natural fermentation process helps to get the desired result, for which yeast is added to the drink. Depending on the taste characteristics, all ciders can be divided into semi-sweet, sweet, bitter-sweet or bitter.
At the same time, they are classified into traditional, sweet and dry. Preparation of apple cider will not take you much time, but, given the great variety of recipes, each hostess will be able to choose for himself the most optimal option.
Useful properties and harm of apple cider
Any drink has its strengths and weaknesses, but, above all, it is important to consider its impact on the human body.
As for apple cider, prepared at home according to one of the popular recipes, it has in its composition just a huge amount of vitamins, useful macro-and micronutrients. That is, all the components of the fruit are not lost in the process of preparing the drink.
Back in ancient times, cider was used by folk healers to treat the blues (in modern terminology - "depressive states"), as well as diabetes and gastrointestinal diseases.
Such problems as viburnum, carrots, pumpkin, cabbage, beets, spinach, kalanchoe, and ginger will also relieve stomach problems.
True, there was a time when the medicinal properties of the product were questioned because of its alcohol content, but scientists were able to reassure skeptics, proving the usefulness of consuming apple wine in small quantities.
Thus, it activates the gastrointestinal tract, increases appetite, normalizes pressure and dilates blood vessels, accelerates the elimination of toxins from the body, and also slows down the aging process, blocking free radicals.
Important! The usefulness of apple juice cider depends on the variety and condition of the fruit. In addition, the cooking conditions also have an effect: the home version is much more useful than the industrial one.
However, in addition to the positive aspects of the use of such a drink, do not forget about possible contraindications. The fact is that cider is a completely natural product and in some people it can provoke allergic reactions associated with individual intolerance to the constituent components of apples or other fruits used.
It is also worth remembering about the strength of apple wine (depending on the recipe, it can vary from 1 to 9%), using it in moderate doses. In addition, no other harmful effects on your body will not have a drink.
Did you know? In some beauty salons customers are offered to take a bath of apple cider, with full immersion of the body. After undergoing a similar procedure, the skin becomes silky and soft, and it is possible to smooth out shallow wrinkles.
Cooking at home
As we mentioned earlier, there are a huge number of recipes for making delicious and healthy apple wine, but in this article we will look at only a few of them, paying particular attention to the simplest and most accessible.
What is needed for cooking
The classic recipe for cider provides for the use of any of the 50 varieties of apples, in particular, such well-known as "Melba", "Antonovka", "Style", "Amber Altai" and "Foxville".
All of them are usually characterized by a high concentration of tannins, which give the finished drink a unique taste. Simply put, you can pick up any variety of apples common in your region, the main thing is that they are tasty.
Important! Never use over-ripe or under-ripened apples, as such fruits will simply crawl or turn out to be too sour during processing, which can not but affect the final taste characteristics of the wine product being made.
For the preparation of the drink, winter and late varieties of apples, containing a large amount of tannins and sugars, are excellent. In this case, the cider is very fragrant, tasty and healthy. Among other necessary ingredients are water and sugar, with 10 kg of apples you need to take up to 1 liter of the first component and 1.5 kg of the second.
As for kitchen utensils, the main thing is to prepare a large saucepan, and everything else can be found in the kitchen. 
The easiest recipe for apple cider
PThe growth of apple cider recipe is ideal for those who want to get a tasty drink, but do not have much time to make it.. The secret here lies in the use of wine ("live" yeast), thanks to which the cider preparation process can be accelerated. 
The squeezing of apples, which fill a three-liter jar exactly one third, is well suited to be the basis for the future drink. Next, you need to add a little white raisins, a glass of sugar and half a teaspoon of yeast, and then pour all this with cold water, filling the jar to the brim.
After performing these steps, it remains only to put the container in a dark place and leave it there for 5-6 days. At the end of fermentation, the finished cider is filtered and it is considered ready for use.
When using this or any other recipe for creating an apple drink, you need to remember a few simple rules:
- The apples collected for a cider cannot be washed. They are wiped with a dry cloth and left to rest for 2-3 days in a warm room (the fact is that wild “live” yeast lives on the surface of the fruit, and for the success of fermentation, especially if you do not use ready-made yeast compounds, they are very important).
- Be sure to remove the tails and leaves from the fruit, and cut apples (together with the bones and peel, it is better to grind in a blender to a homogeneous composition).
- Fermentation tank (in this case, a three-liter jar) should be well washed in hot water and wiped dry. For a container of this volume, you will need about 2.5 kg of apple porridge, which will take 2/3 of the space, and the rest will eventually fill up with foam.
- The neck of the jar cannot be closed with any lids; it is enough just to tie it with gauze folded in several layers.
- The contents of the jar should be stirred daily, whipping and drowning the top layer in the juice.
Important! The smell of fermentation, hissing and foam appear already after 8-16 hours after laying apple sauce.
- Apple cider, which is prepared at home, should ferment at a temperature of + 18 ... +27 ° C. But if the process does not stop after 50 days from the moment of placement for fermentation, in order to avoid bitter taste, it is necessary to pour the cider into another jar with the help of a straw, leaving it to ferment in the same conditions for some time.
You may also be interested to read about how to make wine compote at home
Other popular recipes
In addition to the instant apple cider recipe, there are other equally popular options for creating the described drink: for example, without sugar or with gas.
Sugar-free cider is considered a classic cooking method often used in England and France. It is characterized by simple technology and will certainly please the true connoisseurs of all natural, and to get such a useful product, you need:
- Squeeze the juice and allow it to stand in the dark at normal room temperature.
- Then pour the clean juice (without sediment) into a clean fermentation tank and put a water seal on it, in the form of an ordinary medical glove.
- Further, as usual, the jar is placed for 3-5 weeks in a dark room with a temperature of about + 20 ... +27 ° C, and after the fermentation process is over, the cider is poured through a tube into another jar, trying not to mix sediment with juice.
Important! If you do not plan to saturate the drink with carbon dioxide, then tightly close the container and place it for 3-4 months in a dark room with an air temperature of +6 to +12 ° C.
After the specified period, it is necessary to filter the cider once more and, bottling, cork tightly.
Now consider the option to create a sparkling apple cider. All the main stages of production remain the same as in the previous, "quiet" recipes, but at the same time there are some differences.
So, after removing the beverage from the sediment and sterilizing the bottles (glass or plastic), where it will be stored after the spill, sugar should be poured at the bottom of each of them at a rate of 10 g per 1 liter of volume. It is sugar that provokes weak fermentation with the release of the same carbon dioxide.
After that, fill the bottles with cider, just not under the neck itself, but leaving about 5-6 cm of free space. All containers must be closed with caps or stoppers.
Cider-filled bottles are left in a dark room (at room temperature) for 10-14 days, always checking the gas pressure daily. Too high pressure can lead to an explosion of the tanks, so it is important to release excess gas from them in a timely manner.
Before direct consumption, the finished drink must be kept at least 3-4 days in a cold room. 
Storage Recommendations
Since apple cider is a product of fermented juice under certain conditions, it should be stored so that it retains the freshness of its taste as long as possible. Based on the technology of preparation, the drink created at home is comparable to kvass or "live" beer, which means that the shelf life will not be as long as we would like.
For a freshly prepared drink, a cellar or a cool dark basement would be the most appropriate place. To fermentation did not end, it is necessary to maintain the temperature in the room at + 3 ... +5 ° C. They pour the drink into dark glass bottles, corking them and placing them vertically for no longer than 1 week.
In the absence of a basement, you can send the drink for storage in the refrigerator. Only in this case the temperature for the freshly prepared product should be no higher than + 5 ° C, and the bottles themselves should be placed on the upper shelf provided for the storage of such containers.
Important! In order for the cooked apple cider to remain tasty and fresh longer, it is important not to move the bottles, thereby keeping all the gas inside.
If your cider is prepared exclusively by natural fermentation, it is better to use the drink for 3-5 days or a maximum for a week. Otherwise, it can simply perekisnut and acquire acetic taste.
