Alcoholic Tasting Cider
 

So I am making some hard cider from cider. It started at 1.105 and is now at 1.010. The cider tastes excellent except for a small amount of alcohol flavor at the start. I realize with something this high in alcohol I will probably not be able to get rid of this taste but are there any ways to minimize it? I was planning on carbonating half of this batch in a keg and adding raspberries (~1 lb/gal) to the other half. Any guesses on if this would help with the alcoholic flavor?

wait... you're surprised that an alcoholic beverage tastes like alcohol?

ok, that said, a good cider should have a little twang of alcohol, I believe that cider should taste like a good wine, but still hold some of the original apple flavor. Is the problem that the cider is too dry? if so, maybe you should consider back-sweetening...

Give it 6-8 months.

It's 12.5% ABV (and probably not finished), so you made wine not hard cider! It'll be good, but it'll take a while to age out. I make apple wine all the time out of cider and in a year it's the best white wine I make.

Lol at Adolphus, but David is right. I was a bit sceptic at first about the long aging time required for cider, but with my first cider I found that it didn't quite taste right, even after I'd had it aging for like 3 months. I thought that maybe I just hadn't made a cider that I liked, or maybe I was over the taste of cider, but I left 6 or so bottles in the back of the brew cupboard and one day about 6 months later I gave it a taste, and WOW, it tasted HEAPS better. Basically I think you should make a cider, in an extra fermentor and once it's in secondary just forget about it, bottle it, then put it all away and don't open the majority of it till much later. I was so bummed that I'd already consumed all but 6 bottles by the time that it tasted good >_<.
I must say mine was only ~7% and I tasted a slight alcoholy taste, but as it aged it seemed to have mellowed out a little, though it was hard to tell cos those 6 bottles were gone in no time :drunk:.

So i guess too much yeast to start with ?
Thanks for all the good comments ... enjoying learning about hard cider

Too much yeast? No, of course not. It's too much sugar, with too high of an OG, for the yeast. It's rocket fuel, not cider.

Thanks... keeping learning ... Wondering if I should buy whatever is used to measure sugar and alcohol content ...

Hydrometer I believe is what you want. They're cheap and handy to have.