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It’s hard to beat the freshness of home-pressed apple cider, but that freshness doesn’t last long. Fresh pressed apple cider begins to ferment on its own in as little as 24 hours if left unrefrigerated, or in about a week in the fridge.
Depending on where you live, you may not be able to get fresh cider without chemical preservatives, so canning your own is the best way to savor the taste of fall all winter long.
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We can up home-pressed cider in quart and half-gallon mason jars, and warm it on the wood stove with cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and clove for a quick mulled cider mid-winter.
I save a couple of half-gallon jars of canned apple cider for parties, and a thick-bottomed enameled cast iron pot on the wood stove makes the whole room smell like fall. Having it slow cooking like that means that anyone can serve themselves as they please, and the spices gently infuse as it heats.
I’m also a huge fan of sparkling cider, and adding a bit of seltzer to home-canned cider will give you something that tastes exactly like the Martinelli’s sparkling apple cider I grew up drinking on special occasions as a kid. I have so many good memories tied to sparkling apple cider that anytime I’m having a particularly tough day, I pour myself a cold glass of half home-canned cider and half seltzer water and my cares just fade away.
Our homestead orchard has more than a dozen apple trees, many of which are perfect winter storage apples. With a little preparation, good storage apples will keep all winter in a cool basement or back room.
Those that don’t store well on their own go into canned applesauce, canned apple pie filling and then anything that’s left is pressed on our double barrel cider press into tasty cider for canning. If you don’t have a press, you can always make a DIY cider press for small batches.
Technically, apple cider is unfiltered apple juice that’s never been heated, so canning your own cider means that it’s not cider anymore by a legal definition. Give it a try, and there’s no way you’ll call this home-canned cider plain old “juice.”
Store-bought apple juice is heavily filtered and has little character. Home-canned cider tastes like it just came off the tree, even a year after it was put up.
How to Can Apple Cider
Apple cider is naturally high in acid and doesn’t need any added sugar or lemon juice to preserve by water bath canning. Start by preparing a simple water bath canner and bringing it to a boil. Be sure to test your pot and make sure it’s deep enough before you start canning in half-gallon jars, or simply put it up in quart or pint jars.
If you’re using half-gallon jars, the pot will need to be 2-3 inches taller than a sealed half-gallon mason jar. The water level needs to be at least 1 inch above the top, and then you’ll need at least 1-2 inches of headspace above the jars for a vigorous boil.
As the canner comes up to a boil, bring the cider to a boil in a separate pot. You don’t want to cook it, just bring it right to a boil and can it immediately.
Fill clean canning jars (pint, quart or a half-gallon) leaving 1/4 inch headspace. Center 2 part lids canning lids on the jars and seal them to finger tight.
Place the canning jars filled with boiling hot apple cider into a boiling water bath canner. Make sure that the jars are at least 1 inch below the water line.
Process in a water bath canner for 5 minutes for pints and quarts, and 10 minutes for half-gallon jars. (Remember to adjust for altitude.) Once the canning time is complete, turn off the canner and leave the jars in the water for 5 more minutes before removing them to cool.
Once the jars are cool, check the seals and store any unsealed jars in the refrigerator. Sealed jars will keep at room temperature for 12 to 18 months. After that, I’ve noticed that quality begins to degrade and the juice will lose flavor.
Here’s the process in a nutshell:
Method: Water Bath canner – Hot pack – Bring cider to a boil before filling jars and place into a hot boiling water bath canner.
Headspace: 1/4 inch
Process Time: 5 minutes for pints and quarts, 10 minutes for half gallons (adjust for altitude). Turn off heat, wait 5 minutes and then remove jars.
Low-Temperature Canning Cider
My old school canning book Stocking Up from 1977 has a different process. They note that long boils in water bath canners can hurt the delicate flavors of some juices. I’d hardly call a 5-minute water bath can a “long process time” but still, they suggest a low-temperature pasteurization for apple cider.
“The delicate flavor of most fruit juices can be spoiled by the high temperatures of a long boiling water bath. For this reason, directions state that some juices be poured boiling hot into sterilized jars and sealed without processing, and other juices be processed in a hot water bath, which means that the water is steadily kept at 185 to 190 degrees F….Pour [apple cider] into sterilized jars, leaving 1/4-inch headspace. Process pints and quarts in a 185-degree hot water bath for 30 minutes.”
From the directions in stocking up, it’s unclear whether or not the juice is first brought to a full boil or if it’s just brought to 185 degrees F before being poured into hot canning jars.
The National Center for Food Preservation doesn’t explicitly condone low-temperature canning for apple cider, but they do have instructions for low-temperature canning pickles. Pickles have a similar process time as apple cider, and here are the instructions they give for low-temperature pasteurization:
“The following treatment results in a better product texture but must be carefully managed to avoid possible spoilage. Place jars in a canner filled half way with warm (120º to 140º F) water. Then, add hot water to a level 1 inch above jars. Heat the water enough to maintain 180º to 185º F water temperature for 30 minutes. Check with a candy or jelly thermometer to be certain that the water temperature is at least 180ºF during the entire 30 minutes.”
I’ve been told by a friend who’s used this method that all the jars sealed and it worked well. I’ve yet to try it, but in theory, if canning cider at a lower temperature for a longer time should be sufficient to render them safe for room temperature storage. Be aware though, to the best of my knowledge this method is not considered a “safe tested recipe” by the National Center for Food Preservation.
Just a quick note: I built the same cider press you show in the photo and found those tiny handles they supply worthless. You can’t lift the press and walk with it using 6″ handles. What does work is cutting dados into the frame to accept two ash wheelbarrow handles and bolt them on. Moves the whole press with ease now.
If not letting it ferment, Can alcohol such as a flavored whiskey for example, be added to the cider prior to canning, to make a spiked cider? Will that be safe or affect the shelf life?
I’ve never heard of anyone doing that before. I think if it were me I would probably just can the cider and then add the alcohol when serving.
What would be the time for a 2 litre jar?
2 litres can be processed the same as half-gallon jars.
For our holidays we love to use good store bought apple cider mixed with powdered mulling spices containing sugar and spices warmed in a crock pot. Could I can what we have left over from this?
Yes, you should be able to. The mulling spices probably don’t include any thickeners (flour, etc), that’d be the only thing that’d cause problems (but why would that be in there?). Just spices and sugar is totally fine, and the instructions would be the same. Cinnamon/cloves tend to intensify during canning, or during storage, so you might want to try to filter out as much of that as possible before canning.
If I cook 12 lbs of the tiny red crab apples in 12 cups of water with all the spices and then press thru double layer cheese cloth and then heat and then can, is that apple cider ?
I’m not sure if that’d count as “apple cider” but it’d be an extracted juice, and delicious. They actually have specific instructions on basically doing that exact thing with regular apples for a canning apple juice recipe if you don’t have a juicer. The specific instructions are here, and it’d be the same for crabapples: https://practicalselfreliance.com/canning-apple-juice/
I just canned 28 quarts of my lovely fresh delicious home pressed apple cider, pressed on an over 100 year old cider press. NEVER AGAIN! I thought it would still be delicious by all the comments here. Followed your directions exactly as posted. . But it now just tastes like the crappy apple juice you buy in the store. Don’t ever can your fresh squeezed apple cider. You will ruin it. Will always make room to freeze it as usual from now on. So disappointed.
Have you tried this with harvest guard or tattler lids, for either of the water bath options?
You can use reusable lids in this recipe just like you can any other. There tends to be a little bit of a learning curve with the reusable lids but once you get that down, the process is the same regardless of the recipe.
I don’t see any recipe! How much of each ingredients? I have no cider presser, first time I’ve heard of it… also I live in an apartment and have a small kitchen. I have a large pantry and lots of storage, but no space for cider press and no idea how to use it.
There isn’t a recipe for cider. It’s just raw, unfiltered juice from pressing the apples. This post here shows you how to use an apple press to make cider. https://practicalselfreliance.com/using-double-barrel-cider-press/ There is also a post here that shows you how to make your own press for free here.https://practicalselfreliance.com/build-a-diy-cider-press-for-free/ You can also check with local orchards in your area. They sometimes sell fresh cider that you can buy and can. Just be careful about buying storebought cider because it sometimes contains preservatives and other ingredients that you may not want to have in your cider.
So happy I found your site. We have been pressing apples and bottling the fresh cider straight into plastic bottles then freezing. My question is could I can the cider once it has been defrosted? Just wondering if I need to free up freezer space. Thank you
Yes you can! Enjoy!
Adding to another question, do you know if you can can in growlers.? It seems that bottles of juice and such in the store are sealed with some kinds of plastisol caps.
Growlers I’m not sure, I don’t think the glass is made for that with many of them. Perhaps it’s possible with re-used ones from the store, which were made to be canned industrially in the first place. Fillmore container (https://www.fillmorecontainer.com/) sells all manner of glassware, and it might be worth talking to them about growlers they might have that are rated for canning. Good luck!
I’ve been researching canning the juice in jugs. I can’t find a lid that specifically says you can use it in a water bath and it will seal. Have you ever looked into this? I would just prefer it for looks.
A friend of ours had us over for a get together of making apple cider this was my first experience with this and we had such a good time and the fresh cider was amazing, I had got a gallon and a half and put in the fridge as soon as we got home, we have drink all but probably half gallon and I was wanting to can the rest for later but on opening it this morning there was the fermentation smell all still tastes great can I still can it?
With such a small amount, it might be easier to just freeze it.
I am wanting to can some apple cranberry juice/cider. I have the fresh cranberries that were just harvested two days ago. Can I use store bought apple cider if it has less than 1% of potassium sorbate in it?
I guess you could do that but for me one of the major reasons for canning is to avoid any kind of preservatives.
Thanks for sharing.
You’re welcome !
Typo-Corrected post:
We have a small family orchard and can our cider each year. I discovered the low temp canning method several years ago and it saved a ton of time & improved the taste of our cider. It has worked great for me as I can a hundred or more jars a year. My method is to filter our fresh pressed cider through several layers of good cheese cloth to remove unwanted debris. Then I wash & sterilize two qt. jars in a water bath while bringing the cider to a boil in another pot. Once it boils I do as mentioned above, pour hot cider into jars with 1/4” headspace & then screw on my sterilized lids w/ rings. Within a few minutes the happy lid popping sound begins. Some jars take an hour our more to seal. After 24 hours I check and lable jars, removing any unsealed jars to the fridge, which is rare. Then I wipe down & put the rest in my food storage. This canned cider tastes just as it did fresh from the press. Everyone loves it. It beats any cider from the store. Absolutely delicious!🍏🍎🥃
Sounds wonderful!
I bought a gallon of apple cider from the store to make apple cider jelly. The cider will expire in 10 days in refrigerator. Can I can the remainder of the cider to preserve for use at a later date? Plan to try making my own later, but for now store bought is my only option.
Yes, you can can store-bought apple cider (provided it’s just cider, sometimes they add all kinds of stuff, check the ingredients). Make the jelly first though, canning as juice will denature the pectin so it won’t gel if you try to make jelly with canned apple cider.
If i little apple chunk gets throw the screening and it is properly water bathed do i have anything to worry about?
Thanks just did our second year family apple press canned over 40 gallons!
Teeny tiny pieces are nothing to worry about, but the actual scanning time for apple chunks of any substantial size is considerably longer. If you end up with big chunks in there, I’d suggest canning for the time suggested for apple slices. Use your best judgement, but I wouldn’t worry about super tiny tidbits personally.
Question: I followed this recipe last fall/winter and the results were wonderful… but I have a question…
I have a few jars that I just found in the back of my pantry that were forgotten about. Seals are intact and they are 11 months old. Oops!
Upon closer inspection, some had actually started to grow a Mother. I haven’t opened them yet, but does this just mean they’ve started to turn to vinegar? Can they be used or should I just air on the side of caution and throw them out? If they are just normal vinegar, I know the health benefits would be amazing… but I don’t know how to tell the difference between good fermentation and bad 😬
I would just open it up and smell it. You will know if it has turned to vinegar by the smell.