Can You Turn Apple Juice Into Alcohol?

Apple pies and apple juice are popular because they are the shining star of our favorite foods and drinks.

You may be aware that fruits can be used to make alcoholic drinks, such as grapes for wine and apples for hard cider, and a lesser-known example is bananas.

It’s possible to ferment apples to make hard cider, but what about apple juice? I wonder if apple juice can turn into alcohol.

It can, and I am going to take a more detailed look at the process that takes the humble apple from fruit to an alcoholic beverage.

Apple juice is composed of two sugars: fructose and glucose. When heated, these sugars undergo a process known as caramelization that produces alcohol.

Can Apple Juice Ferment?

I’m not talking about apples, I’m talking about how to ferment apple juice. The juice of the apple can be used to make alcohol.

The seeds, the skin, and the stem are no longer needed.

This leaves us with the flesh of the apple, which is the first ground to produce the apple juice in the same way you grind pear or peach for their juices.

You can see in a bottle of store-bought apple juice that it is not as clear as it is when we have our apple juice.

There is a chance that it will be cloudy and contain some small solid particles. Certain types of bacteria and yeast need to be present for the process to take place.

There are some varieties of yeast found in apples. Some apple types may be able to be used alone to start the process of fermentation.

In most cases, it is necessary to add yeasts to ferment. Next is figuring out how much yeast you want to add and how much sugar you want to add.

How quickly you want the apple juice to ferment and the alcohol strength you want will be some of the factors that will be taken into account.

The naturally occurring sugars within the apple will be consumed by the yeast, which will convert them into alcohol and carbon dioxide.

Apple Juice

What Is The Time Required for Apple Juice to Turn into Alcohol?

Taking into account the overall process you need to follow to go from raw apples to cider and the actual ferment period, I will answer this in two different ways.

The first part should be done in no more than an hour. You are peeling and coring your apples and mashing them into a puree.

If you want to remove particles, you can add water to this pulp and strain it.

Apple juice is ready to be poured into the container you will use to ferment it Some containers are recommended and others aren’t ideal, but there are other options.

The latter is an ordinary glass bottle with a cotton plug.

A large jar that has proper tubes for releasing the carbon dioxide that builds up would be more desirable.

In terms of time spent until this point, it would be somewhere between 30 minutes to 1 hour, so not that long; however, a greater degree of patience is needed for the fermentation stage.

You will begin to notice some bubbling at the top of the liquid once started.

For up to 3 days, this frothing can continue. When the frothing stops, you can know when the process has been successful.

Alcohol

How Much Alcohol Can Be Created From Fermented Apple Juice?

The amount of sugar added at the start of fermentation is the main factor in determining the strength of the cider.

It is possible to create a cider with an alcohol by volume of up to 15%, but it would probably taste terrible because of the amount of sugar that had to be used.

In normal circumstances, you should expect alcohol by volume (ABV) of between 4% and 6%, which is similar to beers and commercial ciders, although some more potent and still palatable ciders can be as high as 10%.

Conclusion

It is easy to see why apples are such a popular fruit, given all the different ways they can be turned into foods and drinks.

Imagine a pork meal with apple sauce, sour dough made from apples, apple pie for dessert, and all washed down with a cold and refreshing apple cider.

You can adjust the taste and strength of cider now that you know how to make it, and that’s the beauty of it.

If you want to make your cider, it should take no more than 3 days from the time you pick your apples to when you drink it.

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