How long doesApple ciderlast in the fridge?

The methods the USDA actually rates for this item

The USDA rates only 2 of its nine storage methods for this item, and the pantry and refrigerator are what it rates. The other 7 slots are blank, and a blank is not a zero: it means no published figure, not that the method fails.

Every storage figure the USDA publishes for this item

The USDA gives this item a pantry and a refrigerator figure and no freezer figure at all, the pattern behind 79 of the 466 foods in the data. The freezer slot is not blank either: the source answers it in words, below.

• In the freezerIndefinitely
• In the pantry2 days to 3 days
• In the fridge2 weeks to 3 weeks

Where the USDA answers in words instead of days

1 of the nine slots the USDA keeps for this item holds an answer that is not a number, and an answer in words is still an answer: in the freezer it answers Indefinitely, so kept that way the food does not run out of time, though it can still lose quality.

Turning the range into a date

The window here is 3 weeks, short enough that the day it went in is worth writing down. The field for this one is at the top of the page, above the answer it changes.

• In the pantryUse by2 days to 3 days after the day you stored it
• In the fridgeUse by2 weeks to 3 weeks after the day you stored it

Is this window about safety or about taste?

The answer at the top of this page reads 2 weeks to 3 weeks in the fridge. Nothing here names the food: neither Apple cider, fresh nor the heading it sits under says whether it spoils dangerously or keeps itself. Past it, take the shorter of the two answers: we would rather print that the record does not settle it than pick one for you.

The figure in the pantry here is a quality window. The same page carries windows of more than one kind, so which sentence applies depends on which row you are reading, not on the food. Every figure assumes the food was sound when you stored it, that your refrigerator holds 40 °F or below and your freezer 0 °F or below, and that the package was handled normally.

It is past the date. Now what?

Say the calculator above puts Apple cider, fresh past its 2 weeks to 3 weeks in the fridge window. If the food is moist, low in acid and ready to eat — a sauce, a drink, a filling — treat the date as a limit and throw it out untasted; otherwise look and smell, and out it goes if either is off.

The USDA's limit for perishable food standing at room temperature is 2 hours, or 1 hour when the kitchen is above 90 °F, and that clock runs whatever the storage figure says. The FoodKeeper entry this page is built from prints storage times and nothing else, so anything past them here is USDA and FSIS guidance rather than a figure from the source. The whole rule, including the cases the source does not cover, is set out under what to do when the date has passed.

Two places, and one of them is the wrong one

The USDA rates two places for Apple cider, fresh in one state and they disagree: 2 weeks to 3 weeks in the fridge against 2 days to 3 days in the pantry. This page answers with the refrigerator, the longer of the two. Both figures are the USDA's own, so this is a choice of where to put the food rather than a disagreement about how long it keeps.

Is that a long time?

2 items in the Beverages list keep exactly as long as this item, 3 weeks, so they all share place 14 of 22 rather than being put in an order the data does not support. Among the 340 foods the USDA also gives a refrigerator figure, it keeps longer than 63% of them.

Items that behave the same way

Every one of the 6 nearest items keeps the same or less, 6 days to 3 weeks against the 3 weeks of this item, which makes it the durable end of the cluster.

• Fruit Juice in cartons, fruit drinks, punchkeeps exactly as long
• Juice, boxeskeeps 8 days in the fridge once opened
• Soy or rice beveragekeeps 7 days in the fridge once opened
• Orange juicekeeps 7 days in the fridge once openedcommercially packaged carton
• Yuzu, fruit, freshkeeps 5 days in the fridge
• Apple juice, fresh squeezedkeeps 6 days in the fridge

Products the USDA rates in the same places

13 other products are rated in exactly these places — pantry and refrigerator — out of the 466 in the file, so this is an uncommon shape of record. The nearest of them by keeping time are Cilantro, Mint and Oregano. They are listed below with their own answers, closest first, which is why this list differs from the one on their pages. Of the ones shown, none keeps longer than this one does. The longest-keeping of them is Cilantro at 3 weeks. Counted more loosely, by which of the three places are rated at all, 79 products match this one.

• Cilantro2 weeks in the fridge
• Mint2 weeks in the fridge
• Oregano2 weeks in the fridge
• Rosemary2 weeks in the fridge
• Chives2 weeks in the fridge
• Thyme2 weeks in the fridge
• Basil10 days in the fridgefresh
• Cherry tomatoes10 days in the pantry

The rest of the Beverages shelf

The USDA puts this product on the Beverages shelf together with 21 others, and 13 of them keep longer outside the freezer. The shelf runs from Red wine at 5 years down to Soda at 3 days. Nearest this product by window are Fruit Juice in cartons, Juice and Soy or rice beverage, which is the order the list below is printed in. The order counts the longest window outside the freezer, so this item sits here at 3 weeks rather than at the 2 weeks in the fridge its own answer prints.

• Fruit Juice in cartons3 weeks8 days in the fridge once opened
• Juice12 days8 days in the fridge once opened
• Soy or rice beverage10 days7 days in the fridge once opened
• Orange juice10 days7 days in the fridge once opened
• Yuzu7 days5 days in the fridge
• Apple juice6 days6 days in the fridge
• Carrot juice6 days6 days in the fridge
• Soda3 days2 days in the fridge once opened

If it has to keep longer than this

If it has to keep longer than 3 weeks, the Beverages aisle gives 13 products that hold at least twice as long outside the freezer. The smallest step up is Cream liquors at 8 months against this one's 3 weeks; after it come Coconut water, Yuzu juice and Nectar. They are printed below in the order the step gets bigger, not alphabetically. In the other direction, 6 entries in the category keep half as long or less, Soy or rice beverage and Orange juice among them.

• Cream liquors8 months6 months in the pantry
• Coconut water12 months1 day in the fridge once opened
• Yuzu juice12 months3 months in the fridge once opened
• Nectar18 months12 months sealed in the pantry
• Lime juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Lemon juice18 months2 months in the fridge once opened
• Vegetable juice18 months18 months sealed in the pantry
• Diet powder mixes and drink mixes24 months1 month in the pantry once opened

The record this page is built from

This page is built from a single FoodKeeper row, record 662 — the source’s own number for it, not a position — one of the 661 rows in the snapshot. That row fills 2 of the nine storage slots with a time, and the binding figure on it is printed by the source in weeks, which is the unit this page keeps rather than converting it to days. 1 slot is answered in words instead of days, and printed as the source wrote it.

Where these numbers come from

Every range on this page is published by the USDA FoodKeeper and reproduced unchanged. The multipliers, the rankings, the percentages and the dates are ours, computed from those ranges. Where the source gives a span such as 3 to 5 weeks, comparisons use the upper figure, and the full span is always printed.

Rankings cover only the items the USDA gives a usable figure for, and identical ranges share a place rather than being ordered arbitrarily. Neighbors are chosen by nearest storage time within the same category, never alphabetically: two foods filed next to each other by name usually have nothing to do with each other. The freezer is excluded from ranking because it flattens almost everything.

Where the USDA lists several kinds under one name, they share one page here and every kind keeps its own windows: the source prints them as separate rows, and a page that merged them would be inventing a figure the source never published. Comparisons and the place in the category are computed for the kind the plain name means — the shell egg for eggs, the can for tuna — which is settled name by name rather than by the order the source lists its rows in, and the page names it. Where the plain name means no single kind, the page prints no single figure at all and lists the kinds instead.

Source: USDA FoodKeeper, retrieved 1 September 2026. This site computes every comparison on this page and takes responsibility for it. Found a figure that does not match the source? Tell us on the contact page, with the page and the row — the parsing is mechanical, so a mismatch is our bug and we want it. How the whole site is built, which figures are ours and where the source can be checked is on the method page.

USDA index terms: apple, apple cider, cider

KeepsUntil is an independent reference built on public USDA data. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or connected to the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the Food and Drug Administration. Whether a given window is a safety limit or a quality window is stated on the page that prints it.