Well that's a tall order my friend...
You see the basic hard cider was simply the apples were harvested, rinsed, and allowed to "mellow" aka soften a bit, and then they were put into a "cider press" which was a round trough with a stone wheel, and a horse moved the wheel around in a circle, mashing the apples and causing the juice plus some pulp to flow. This was then kegged, with a loose bung, allowed to ferment for about a week, and then sealed.
If there was a sulphur smell, oh well, it was ignored, and today we know this to be a bacteria growing in the cider.
The other problem is that most of your "cider" apple varieties from the 19th century and before, no longer exist other than a few trees in arboreatums.
Add to that the fact that cider houses in England would mix the sweet cider from different types of apples in a secret, proprietary ratio, and then ferment it to get their characteristic hard cider.
OK enough about why it's "tough".
To Make about Two Gallons of Hard Cyder (super basic method)
Phase One
Go out and buy, or mail order, 2 rubber stoppers and 2 plastic fermentation locks, plus order about 6 packets of ale yeast. Don't buy wine yeast, don't buy liquid yeast... dry ale yeast. Nottingham, Cooper, Munich, and Edme are all good. I use Edme a lot.
Buy a quart of sweet cider that doesn't list any preservatives on the label, drink about a third, then pour in one of the packets of yeast, install one of the stoppers and one of the fermentation locks into the spout of the quart container. Don't forget to add water to the lock. Leave it on your kitchen counter for several days.... if it ferments you know that it indeed doesn't have preservatives.
Test complete; end of phase one
Phase Two
Buy two gallons of the same cider in plastic, gallon containers. Empty the cider into a large, clean, stock pot, and save the gallon containers and the lids. Heat the cider in the pot until it boils. At the same time, thoroughly clean the gallon containers and the lids. Make room in the fridge for the two gallon containers
When the cider boils it kills off any bacteria, mold, and wild yeast that may give you bad smells and flavors. Remove the cider from the heat and let it sit for about 30 minutes to begin cooling. Then....Carefully, using a funnel, pour the almost boiling cider back into the two cider containers, leaving about a 3" gap from the spout to the level of the cider. You may have more cider than you need. Cap the containers while hot, and place them into the fridge to cool. You might want to put a towel down so the gallon jugs of hot cider don't "shock" the shelf in your fridge and crack or break it.
Let this cool overnight. The containers will look like they have "shrunk" the next morning.
You now have sterile cider; end of phase two
Phase Three
The next morning....
Clean both stoppers and both fermentation locks. Remove the two gallon containers of cider from the fridge, remove the caps, and add one or two packets of dry ale yeast to each container. Install the stoppers and fermentation locks, and place on the kitchen counter on the towel for about a week to ten days, out of the sunlight. After about two to three days you should see lots of bubbling in the fermentation lock, as long as the room temp is above 50 degrees F. Watch the fermentation lock and be sure that evaporation doesn't cause it to loose too much water. At the end of 10 days you should be done with bubbling, if not wait until it stops.
You now have hard cider: End of Phase Three
Follow Up
If you have even the faintest "rotten egg" smell then something wasn't clean enough and you have bacteria in the cyder. Most folks start over.
You can remove the stoppers and locks, and replace them with the gallon jug caps and put the jugs in the fridge. You can start drinking the stuff. Over time though, the yeast cells in the jugs may give you odd flavors...
So... what I would do is to get a couple of gallon, water jugs with screw caps while the cider ferments. Empty these, and when the cider is done fermenting, I'd clean my funnel, and then decant the cider from the fermenting jugs into the clean, empty water jugs. The pulp and old yeast cells will have settled to the bottom of the fermentation jugs, so gently decant, and try not to transfer the crud (called Trub) to the new jugs. (This process is called "racking") Transfer the stoppers and fermentation locks to the new jugs, and watch them for about three days, checking for more bubbles... to ensure you got complete fermentation. Then remove the stoppers and locks, and seal the jugs with the caps and put both jugs in the fridge.
These should store well and not give you any odd flavors.
Enjoy
LD
oy vey!
