Storage
Storing cider without a cellar
Where should I keep cider if I do not have a cellar?
In short
The target is the most stable cool, dark place available rather than the coldest, because temperature swings do more damage than a steady temperature a few degrees higher than ideal.
In most houses that means an internal cupboard against a north-facing wall, the bottom of a wardrobe, or an insulated garage — and it does not mean a loft, a conservatory, a kitchen cupboard next to an appliance, or an open shelf in a lit room.
The packaging the cider arrived in is free light protection and should generally be kept.
What you are actually optimising for
Four variables matter, and in this order: temperature stability, temperature level, darkness, and freedom from vibration and strong smells. A place that scores well on the first three is a good cellar substitute even if it is a cupboard under the stairs.
Temperature stability comes first because thermal cycling drives air past closures and mechanically works the seal. A location that varies by two degrees across the year is better than one that varies by fifteen, even if the second is on average cooler.
Temperature level comes second: cooler is better within the 8–14 °C band, but there is no benefit in going below about 8 °C for storage, and cold enough to freeze is actively harmful.
Darkness is third and is easy to solve, because a cardboard box solves it completely. Vibration and smells are fourth and are minor for most households; the exceptions are a cupboard housing a washing machine, and storage next to strongly aromatic materials, since some closures are slightly permeable.
Where to look, and what to avoid
| Location | Assessment | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Internal cupboard on a north wall | Good | Cool, dark, and thermally stable; usually the best available |
| Bottom of a wardrobe against an outside wall | Good | Dark and stable; often cooler than the room |
| Understairs cupboard | Usually good | Dark and stable, provided no heating pipes run through it |
| Insulated garage | Good if insulated, poor if not | An uninsulated garage swings from near freezing to warm |
| Spare room floor, north-facing | Acceptable | Cooler than the house average; keep bottles boxed |
| Kitchen cupboard away from appliances | Acceptable at best | Kitchens are the warmest room and cook whenever anyone does |
| Kitchen cupboard next to oven, boiler or hot water tank | Bad | Can be ten degrees or more above room temperature |
| Loft or attic | Bad | The widest temperature range in the house; extreme in summer |
| Conservatory or sunroom | Bad | Heat and direct light together, which is the worst combination |
| Open shelf in a lit room | Bad | Cumulative light exposure; visible bottles are exposed bottles |
| Domestic fridge, long term | Poor for storage | Colder than needed, dry, vibrating, and it stops any conditioning |
Practical arrangements
- Keep bottles in their original cases or in plain cardboard boxes; this handles light and adds a little thermal buffering.
- Store upright unless the closure is a natural still-wine cork, which wants the bottle on its side.
- Put bottles somewhere they will not be moved. Repeated handling rouses sediment and, for a conditioning batch, is worth avoiding for other reasons.
- Keep a note of what is where and when it was bought or bottled. Without it, keeping cider becomes accumulating cider.
- Do not store cider on a cold concrete floor in direct contact with the slab; a pallet, a board or the box it came in avoids the cold spot and any damp.
- For a small quantity of cider intended to be drunk soon, a fridge is fine; for anything intended to be kept, it is the wrong place.
When there is genuinely nowhere cool
In a flat with no cool corner, the realistic answer is to buy less and drink it sooner rather than to attempt long storage in a warm room. A cider drunk within three months of purchase is barely affected by storage conditions; the same cider kept for two years in a warm flat will be.
Where cider is being kept in a warm room by necessity, prioritise the styles that tolerate it — tannic, higher-alcohol, well-closed — and drink the light, aromatic ciders first, since they are the ones that will deteriorate fastest.
A wine cabinet or a thermoelectric cooler set to about 10 °C is an effective solution if the quantity justifies it. It should be set warmer than wine-serving temperature and used for storage rather than as a fridge.
Also answered on this page
Questions this page covers, so you can tell at a glance whether it is the one you want.
- Can you store cider in a kitchen cupboard?
- Is it bad to keep cider in the loft?
- Should cider be kept in the fridge?
Related
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.
- What temperature should cider be stored at, and how much does a warm cupboard actually cost — A cool, stable 8–14 °C is the target for almost every cider and perry, and stability matters at least as much as the number: repeated cycling between warm and cold does more harm than a steady temperature a few degrees above ideal.
- Does light damage cider, and is green glass as good as brown
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.
The New Cider Maker’s Handbook: A Comprehensive Guide for Craft Producers
Claude Jolicoeur, Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013. ISBN 9781603584739 · reference work · bibliographic record verified, not opened 2026-08-25
Bibliographic record verified on 2026-08-25 against the Open Library union catalogue: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2013, ISBN 9781603584739, one edition recorded. That establishes the citation points at a real book in a stated edition, which is what a citation needs and is all it establishes. No copy was opened and nothing is quoted from it. The book itself is in print and not digitised in any open collection; where CiderHQ needs a figure from this territory it uses an accessible research source instead and says so.
CAMRA cider and perry standards
Campaign for Real Ale · specialist organisation · retrieved 2026-08-24
Opened on 2026-08-24. Registered for the consumer-campaigning vocabulary — "real cider", "full juice" — which is advocacy language rather than legal definition, and is recorded as such wherever CiderHQ uses it.