Cider is pressed and these days, usually pasteurised. It will have lots of little fibrous bits that settle over time.

Apple juice is always pasteurised and filtered.

I've made both, and they have different tastes between juice and cider.

The cider has a bit more "bite" to it, a bit more of the fresh apple taste and not the cooked apple taste from juice.

I bought the cider, but make my own juice. Would live to get a press and make cider some day too.

I don't like drinking apple juice, but I do like apple cider.

Time.

Just a small point of information - if you happen to be reading recipes from the UK, 'cider' will always refer to an alcoholic beverage and there are many types and strengths. It's a classic combo with oily foods like pork or mackerel. 'Apple juice' is not fermented. There are all sorts available including clear or cloudy, pasteurized and unpasteurised, blends and varietals.

This is what I always believed growing up.

You start the same way, wash and cut up the apples, remove the stem and blossom end, but leave the peels and seeds.

For cider, you put the apples in a press, and squeeze. What you end up with is the raw juice from the apples. It can be fermented, if you want. To me, this has much more of a fresh apple bite to it.

For juice, you put the apples in a pot with enough water so they won't burn, and then cook them for several hours until you have nothing but mush. Dump the mush into a strainer lined with cheesecloth, and let drip for several hours (I leave mine overnight) and what you end up with is juice from cooked apples. I don't think this will ferment, since it's not raw. If you cook it down, you can make apple pectin out of it. Usually mine needs to be cut with water or it's like drinking apple syrup.

Hard cider is when you let the cider ferment, but we never had any of that growing up.

Cooked apple juice will ferment as long as any yeast gets in to eat any sugars.

Cider is pressed from cold or room temperature apples. It can then be filtered for sediment (if desired) and pasturized (by heat or by UV filter) if desired.

Juice is made pressing hot fruit. Both methods taste quite different. Cider is usually a raw product while juice is a cooked product. The teminology is a bit shady these days since so many now pasteurize the cider by heat
but not at the high temps that processing juice usually occurs.

I hate pasteurized cider when done by heat and prefer if done with UV filter for that old time cider taste. Better yet I hunt for non-pasterized cider which must be labeled
as such at orchards that sell it in my state. Big warning on it that may be harmful to children or elderly as non-pasteurized.

Recent studies show IF cider pressed with warm apples (yields more juice) and left to sit warm for a while and
then frozen, this works as good as heat pasterization. The acidity and good bacteria will work to kill the bad bacteria with this method using warm apples. The final kicker is the freezing action.

We made a lot of cider when I was a boy on a large cider press I built in woodshop while in high school. Years later I used to help make 250 gallons each week on a commercial press at an apple orchard I was employed at.

I bought a gallon of apple cider. Looked at the ingredients - says made from 100% apple juice.

I plan on making a press for next year. At least that way I'll know what I have.

Does anyone have a link to a plan to build a cider press that is free to download?

I got some ideas from this thread. No plans but some pictures. My husband is happy to make this as it will work as a press for lots of automotive applications too.

I'll use my meat grinder to chop the apples.

Here is a link that might be useful: thread on apple press

I built a large press in woodshop class during high school
many years ago. We pressed our home grown apples and the
neighbors too. The key on a home press is not the press but the grinder. The finer it grinds the more juice per bushel. My home press averaged 2-2.5 gallons per bushel.

A commercial set up using a hammermill grinds up the fruit to the consistency of applesauce. Commercially I averaged
3-3.5 gallons per bushel.

One trick is to use room temperature fruit. The juice flows better when warm than cold. Use a mix of apple varieties (sweet and tart) for best flavor.

Here's a link to a fruit press:

h**p://www.the-gift-of-wine.com/presspics/press2.pdf

L.