"arne thormodsen" > wrote in message
...
> What are the best apples, or blend of apples, commonly available in
> the US, for making hard cider? I've got my own juicer, so I can
> make any blend of juice I need.
>
> Thanks,
>
> --arne
>

Just a followup. I decided to use 1/2 Granny Smith and 1/2 Tydman.
The latter variety I'd never heard of, but the guy in the produce
section recommended it as a not-to-sweet apple good for cooking.

I bought 10 Lbs of each and ran them through a Champion Juicer. I
also bought an apple core-and-section tool, without which the job
would have been darn near impossible. The yield was about 1 1/4
gallons of juice. The gravity was about 1.05 (I'm a beer maker, one
of you wine guys will have to translate this to Brix... ;-). This was
a bit shy of what I wanted so I added about 6 oz. of table sugar to
bring the gravity to 1.06. Pitched Cote de Blancs and let it go.

Racked it last night after 5 days. Even at this point it's easily the
best cider I've ever made. Maybe not the best I've tasted, but
certainly the best I've made and one I'd be happy to serve to guests
(unlike some of my other experiments).

I'm going to let it sit in secondary until it clears and see how it
finally ends up. So far so good. Thanks for the help from this
group.

--arne