What is hard cider? how do you make it?!
what is it classified as?
Answers: what alcohol percent is it.
what is it classified as?
NEVER boil your cider, it releases the tannins, and will never clear...
Using fresh pressed apple cider (or just plain 100% apple juice from the store), with no preservatives or additives, put this into your fermenting vessel. Depending on the apples used, without adding any sugar, you will have a 4-6% finished product.
Put the cider in your fermenting vessel, add sugar if you want, and add yeast... depending on what yeast you use, will cause the finished product to be different. Most homebrewers either use a simple wine yeast (I use Cotes de blanc for mine), or a cider yeast.
Let it sit in primary for about a month or so, until fermentation slows, then rack to secondary. Let it sit in secondary another month or so, until clear enough to read a newspaper through the carboy. Rack again into bulk aging (glass or oak is recommended). Let it sit in bulk aging for 3-12 months for secondary (malo-lactic) fermentation to take place.
Cider is tricky to classify. The US government (ATF) says anything between 0.5% and 7%, that uses apples as it's primary fermentable is cider. Over 7%, and it's called apple wine. Most people will group any cider or apple wine with wines though.
Email me if you would like even more details, or I can recommend a couple very good books...
Hard cider is fermented cider.
Boil Apple cider for 10 Min to sterilize.
Place in a sterile glass container. Add Wine yeast when cool.
Put an airlock on it to allow gas to get out and air to stay away. When bubbling has stopped, filter and serve. @ 10% alcohol.
http://www.leeners.com/cider.html
This will tell you all about the art of making good ole hard cider..