I've seen a few youtube videos on making hard cider, but there are a lot of methods and none of them really seemed to resonate with me. So, I've made up my own and blended in a lot of what I read.
Here are the ingredients:
Whole Foods 1 Gallon Apple Juice at room temp
1 packet US-05 Ale Yeast from Safale
1/2 cup brown sugar
20 raisins
Key is that the apple juice contains no preservatives. It can be pasteurized but cannot have preservatives.
So, I boiled like 1/2 cup of water and 20 organic raisins. I didn't count them, but I'm guessing it was between 12 and 20. After that came to a boil I smushed them and let it boil a few more minutes. Then, I strained off the raisins and kept the liquid. I put the liquid back into the pot and added 1/2 cup of light brown sugar and let that come to a boil and let it reduce. I wanted something I could pour, but I didn't want a lot of extra liquid.
So, I then took the sugar-raisin reduction and poured it into the gallon jug of apple juice using a sanitized funnel and shook it up. Then, I poured in a half packet of US-05 Dry Ale Yeast. I've read that you can use wine yeast and champagne yeast too. I happened to have some US-05 so I went with it. Again, I put the lid back on and shook it. Let it sit for 10 min and then shook the heck out of it again. Then, added a bung and an airlock. Note that normal airlock bungs for a carboy do not fit into the opening for this gallon jug of apple juice so you will need to find another drilled stopper from your local homebrew store. Then, I added it to my fermentation chamber where it is 68 degrees and let it sit. I'll update as time goes on.
