Packaging
Canning
Filling cider into lined aluminium, a format that blocks light completely, seals tightly and depends entirely on an intact polymer coating between an acidic drink and the metal.
Also called can filling, canned cider.
- Stage
- Packaging
- Traditional in
- No single tradition — used wherever it suits
- What it most changes
- Freshness and Carbonation
- Safety
- None recorded
What it is
Canning fills cider into a drawn aluminium body whose interior is coated with a polymer lacquer and which is closed by a mechanically formed double seam. The metal never touches the liquid — or should not — and the coating is what makes the format viable for a drink whose pH sits well into the acid range. Cans are light, stackable, chilled quickly, completely opaque and cheap in volume, and they have taken a large share of the modern cider market. They are also unforgiving of coating damage and of poor seam control in ways that glass is not.
Why it is used
- The aluminium wall admits no light at all, so light-driven degradation of colour and aroma is eliminated rather than merely reduced as it is in coloured glass.
- The format is light and it stacks, so the transport and chilling cost per litre is markedly lower than glass, which matters for a product sold cold and in volume.
- A correctly formed double seam is highly gas-tight, so both oxygen ingress and carbon dioxide loss over the product’s intended life are very low.
How it works
- The interior lacquer — an epoxy, acrylic or polyester coating applied before forming and cured on — is a continuous barrier between the acidic liquid and the aluminium; the whole safety and stability of the format rests on its continuity.
- Where that coating is scratched, thinned at a fold, or incompletely cured, acid attacks the exposed aluminium, releasing metal ions into the cider; the sensory result is a metallic taint, and where those ions catalyse the precipitation of phenolic and protein material it appears as a metal haze.
- The double seam is formed by rolling the end and body flanges together in two operations around a sealing compound, and its integrity is checked by destructive measurement rather than by appearance — a seam that looks correct can still leak.
- Because the thin wall relies on internal pressure for column strength, a still or barely carbonated cider is typically given a small inert gas dose immediately before seaming so that the filled can is rigid enough to handle and stack.
- The format also has an upper pressure limit that is lower than a purpose-made pressure bottle, so a highly carbonated cider, or one carrying any risk of further fermentation, is a poor candidate for it.
What it changes
The direction this step pushes the finished drink in, dimension by dimension. A direction, not a measurement: how far it moves depends on the juice, the temperature and how the step is carried out.
| Dimension | Direction | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Freshness | Preserves | Total light exclusion combined with very low oxygen transmission through the seam means the aroma profile at filling is what the drinker meets, provided the fill itself was clean — the format removes two of the three main degradation routes. |
| Carbonation | Preserves | A sound double seam loses very little carbon dioxide over the product’s life, so the gas level is set at filling and stays there rather than declining as it can past an imperfect crown or cork. |
The chemistry and the organisms
What is actually being changed, and by what. Each entry says what that compound or organism does in cider generally; this page is one place it does it.
Compounds involved
Dissolved oxygen
Essential to a healthy yeast population at the start of fermentation and the principal enemy of a cider from the moment fermentation ends.
Carbon dioxide
The other product of fermentation, which protects a cider from air while it is being made and, dissolved in the finished drink, changes both its texture and its perceived acidity.
What it is done with
Bag-in-box and canning
Bag-in-box collapses as it empties so no air replaces the cider, which suits still cider dispensed over days; canning excludes light and oxygen completely but depends entirely on a correctly formed double seam and a liner that resists an acidic drink.
Counter-pressure filling
Carbon dioxide stays dissolved only under pressure, so carbonated cider poured into an open bottle foams, loses its gas and takes on air; a counter-pressure filler removes the pressure difference by purging and pressurising the bottle first, and vents it under control at the end.
What can go wrong
Faults that begin at this step, or that this step makes more likely. Each one is set out with its causes and whether it can be put right.
Metal haze
A haze or dark cast caused by dissolved iron or copper picked up from equipment, forming insoluble complexes with phosphate or with the cider’s phenolics.
Metallic taint
A metallic, inky or blood-like taste from dissolved iron, copper or zinc picked up from equipment, usually accompanied by accelerated oxidation.
Oxidation
The cumulative effect of oxygen on finished cider: fruit aroma flattens, colour deepens towards amber, and a bruised-apple or sherry-like character replaces the fresh one.
Plastic and packaging taint
Plastic, rubber, adhesive or chemical notes picked up from unsuitable containers, liners, hoses, gaskets or cleaning residues.
Styles it produces
Categories in which this step is characteristic or required. Some name it in their definition; for others it is simply how they have always been made.
Modern mainstream cider
The industrially produced, consistent, carbonated cider that accounts for most of what is sold worldwide, generally made partly from concentrate and finished to a fixed specification.
Fruit cider
Cider with other fruit added as juice, purée or flavouring, a category that now accounts for a large share of the global market and spans a very wide range of practice.
Hopped cider
Cider dry-hopped or hopped in process, borrowing aroma and bitterness from a brewing ingredient to supply what low-tannin apples cannot.
Modern American cider
The dominant contemporary American category: cider from culinary and dessert apples, fermented clean, often carbonated and frequently flavoured, defined against the heritage sector rather than by any tradition.
Polish cider
Cider from Poland, a recent sector built on Europe’s largest apple crop and on dessert and culinary fruit rather than on an inherited cider tradition.
South African cider
Cider from South Africa, where a very large mainstream category built on Western Cape dessert fruit dominates and a small craft sector works alongside it.
More on canning
The corrosion question is the one that distinguishes canning from every other packaging record. Cider is acidic, and aluminium in contact with acid corrodes; the lacquer is therefore not a refinement but the entire basis on which the format works. Coating specifications are chosen for the pH and the composition of the product, and a cider carrying high acidity, added fruit acid, high sulphur dioxide or elevated chloride is more aggressive to the coating than a plain, moderate one. Damage in handling, abrasion on a conveyor, or a can that has been dented before filling all create sites where the barrier is compromised. The consequences appear over months rather than immediately, which is why filling trials and stability testing in the actual can specification, not a similar one, are the standard precaution.
What canning removes is as significant as what it risks. Light-strike, the photochemical reaction that degrades certain compounds and is most familiar as the skunky character in clear-bottled hopped drinks, cannot occur at all in an opaque container; nor can the slower bleaching of colour that any cider suffers on a bright shelf. Combined with a gas-tight seam, that makes the can a technically strong package for a product intended to be sold fresh and drunk cold — which is precisely the profile of the modern flavoured, hopped and lower-tannin ciders that dominate its use. Traditional, tannic, slowly evolving ciders are canned much less often, partly by convention and partly because nothing about the format helps them.
The operational failures are concentrated at the seamer and the filler. Seam parameters drift with wear and must be measured through a run rather than set once; a marginal seam admits oxygen slowly and turns a batch stale before its date. Dissolved oxygen pickup follows the same logic as in bottling, with the added variable of the headspace, which is small and must be purged effectively in the instant before the end goes on. And because the whole package is a pressure vessel with a thin wall, any residual fermentable sugar together with viable yeast is a more serious matter than in a rated bottle: the appropriate response is to confirm stability before filling rather than to rely on refrigeration downstream.
Related processes
Steps that sit alongside this one, replace it, or depend on it having been done.
Packaging
Bottling
Transferring finished cider into glass, where the dominant variable is how much oxygen the liquid picks up in the few seconds it takes to fill and close each bottle.
Carbonation
Forced carbonation
Dissolving carbon dioxide into cider under pressure to a chosen level, giving complete control of the sparkle and none of the flavour a second fermentation would contribute.
Storage
Cold chain
Keeping an unpasteurised, unfiltered or back-sweetened cider refrigerated from the packaging hall to the point of sale, because refrigeration is the only thing holding it stable.
Stabilisation
Sterile filtration
Membrane filtration at a rating that retains viable yeast and bacteria, which is what allows a sweet cider to be shelf-stable without heat or preservative — provided the filling that follows is aseptic.
Packaging
Labelling
Assembling the declarations a container must legally carry, and confirming that the word cider may lawfully be used at all in the market the product is going to.
What people ask next
Questions readers ask about the things this page mentions. Each one goes to the section that answers it rather than to a page written to receive the question.
- Does cider need to be refrigerated — Unopened, no — cool and dark is enough for most cider. Unpasteurised, unfiltered cider keeps far better cold, and anything opened should go in the fridge.
- How is cider carbonated — Either by dissolving carbon dioxide into finished cider under pressure, or by letting a small second fermentation produce the gas inside a sealed bottle or tank. The first is faster and more repeatable; the second leaves sediment and a finer bead.
- What is fruit cider — Fruit cider is cider flavoured with another fruit, either as juice, purée or flavouring, added after fermentation. How much apple has to remain varies by jurisdiction, and in some markets very little does.
- What is oxidation in cider
- Where does the fizz in cider come from — Either from fermentation trapped in a sealed container, or from carbon dioxide dissolved into the cider under pressure before filling. The French cider appellations permit only the first, and require at least 1.0 to 1.5 bar at 20 °C depending on the name.
- Are cider labels regulated
Where to go next
- How cider is made — The whole sequence, stage by stage, with the choices open at each one.
- Cider science — The chemistry and microbiology the methods on this page rest on.
- Troubleshooting — What goes wrong, how to recognise it, and whether it can be reversed.
Sources
What this page rests on. Where a source is marked as registered rather than read, CiderHQ is recording that the body is authoritative on the subject without claiming to have worked through the document itself. See our evidence policy for what each state means.
Cider and perry production technical training material
Peter Mitchell / Cider and Perry Academy · reference work · registered as competent for this subject
Searched again on 2026-08-25 and it remains the one printed source here that a bibliographic check cannot fix, because it is not a published work with an edition. It is course material issued to participants of a training programme, so there is no catalogue record to verify, no ISBN, and no lawful public copy. Its state stays `registered` for that reason rather than through inattention.
National Association of Cider Makers
NACM · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
The UK trade association. Useful for industry-agreed definitions and for the voluntary labelling standards its members work to. A trade body has an interest in how its product is described, so CiderHQ cites it for what the industry says about itself rather than for neutral scientific claims.