Starter Kit - Scrumpy Cider or Perry

All you need as well as this kit are apples (or pears, for perry) and sugar!

The process takes just a few weeks, then just enjoy your own cider at a cost of about 7p a pint - that's for all the ingredients, including sugar, except the apples (or pears) themselves. All the equipment is re-useable for future brews, either of your own cider, or any of our cider, beer or lager kits.

The kit includes:

• 5-gallon fermentation bin with lid (to make the brew)
• Hydrometer (to see how much sugar is needed, and to test when it's ready to bottle)
• Long reach stirrer (most household utensils aren't long enough!)
• Syphon tube (to get the beer from bin to bottles)
• Sterilising powder (to get everything really clean)
• 20 x 1 litre plastic re-usable bottles (with screw caps)
• Cider yeast (for up to 5 gallons)
• 10 Campden Tablets (to sterilise your apple pulp before adding the yeast)
• Tub of Yeast Nutrient (to give the yeast all it needs to grow healthily)
• Muslin bag (to strain the juice from the pulp)
• Easy to follow instructions!

You can make the cider any strength you like - between about 4% to around 10% - an 'average' brew is about 6%. It produces a dry cider, but for sweet cider the easiest way is to make it stronger (by adding more sugar at the start) then add lemonade when pouring it!

You'll need to crush or mince the apples, so a food processor, blender, juicer or mincer is very useful, but if you haven't got one, you can still make a 'scrumpy' cider using just a potato masher to crush the pulp! Be aware, though, that mincing or juicing the apples is a bit laborious, simply because of the number of apples - but worth it! Pears, though, are much easier to crush, if you're making perry rather than cider!

For your next batch, just choose any of our beer, lager or cider kits and use the same equipment over and over!