My first batch of Cider

Hello, i'm new to the forum.
I do have a question, I have completed my first batch of apple cider, but.. it tastes rather sour. Now I haven't drank any commercial beer or cider in years, so I got nothing but faded memories of my navy days to compare it too. Anyway, here was my basic simple recipe.
4 gallons of Motts apple juice
2 quarts of filtered water
About 3/4 pound of brown sugar
Lavin dried yeast EC-1118

I let it ferment for about a month before bottling it back into the Motts plastic jugs. I found it drinkable, but there is a definite sharp sour taste to it.
I'm not sure if thats normal or not
In truth, its taste reminds me of Heineken, and Carlsburg.
I've saved a half gallon of it to compare to future brews.

EC-1118 will ferment dry and has an alcohol tolerance of around 18% if i remember correctly. There is certainly no sugar left in there. That could be ther perceived bitterness. Add some sugar in a glass to taste and see how it is. Of course you could have had a bacterial infection.....

Hmm, i had no idea the yeast had that kind of tolerance. and I drank some last night, defiantly very dry. And i'm pretty sure there is no bacteria infection. I've drank at least 3 gallons of that batch over the past few months and haven't gotten sick, just a bit drunk.

Any suggestions for a lower tolerance yeast?

Don't know wether this may help but next time try blending your apple stock ie 2sweet to 1 sour for example as one using one lot of apple juice/stock thats overly sour produces very sour and sweet goes bland .and the other suggestions is a good idea make a syrup and rebottle about 2 tbsp per bottle is Ideal .

Dippmaster said:

Any suggestions for a lower tolerance yeast?

Click to expand...

What ABV you looking for?

You can always stabilize and backsweet.

Hmm, in truth i'm only looking to get a Alcohol content of 8% or so. and I'm not sure how to stabilize, I know over time all the yeast will settle at the bottom of my carboy, but even with a racking cane, wont some yeast still find its way through the bottling process? and then if I sweeten it, wont it just charge the beverage?

Dippmaster said:

Hello, i'm new to the forum.
I do have a question, I have completed my first batch of apple cider, but.. it tastes rather sour. Now I haven't drank any commercial beer or cider in years, so I got nothing but faded memories of my navy days to compare it too. Anyway, here was my basic simple recipe.
4 gallons of Motts apple juice
2 quarts of filtered water
About 3/4 pound of brown sugar
Lavin dried yeast EC-1118

I let it ferment for about a month before bottling it back into the Motts plastic jugs. I found it drinkable, but there is a definite sharp sour taste to it.
I'm not sure if thats normal or not
In truth, its taste reminds me of Heineken, and Carlsburg.
I've saved a half gallon of it to compare to future brews.

Click to expand...

My two cents. If you're only looking for around 8% make sure you're starting gravity and the yeast you select supports that. I've had EC-1118 run down all the way to 0.990 from 1.090 in wines, but something like Nottingham won't do that.

Also, I think you've essentially made apfelwein with this recipe. Apfelwein is known to be rather sour and unpleasant at a young age. But give it 6 months to a year and it supposedly shines!

If your looking for something more drinkable at a younger age I'd recommend looking up the Caramel Apple Hard Cider or one of the Woodchuck clone recipes in this forum. There are other recipes too that would be good young.

As far as stabilizing goes, after the cider has finished fermenting just mix in potassium sorbate (~1/2 tsp per gallon) and potassium metabisulphite (1 crushed campden tablet per gallon) and you'll have stabilized cider!

Hmm, Apfelwine.. Okay.. Looks like my second batch will be too. it's a very similar recipe.
4 gallons of Motts
1.5 liters of Martinelli's unfiltered apple juice
2 cups of Turbinado cane sugar
Lavin EC-1118

It finished fermenting a couple days ago, now i'm waiting for it to clear up. I'll see about stabilizing it and letting it age. Thank you for the info.

Dippmaster said:

Hmm, Apfelwine.. Okay.. Looks like my second batch will be too. it's a very similar recipe.
4 gallons of Motts
1.5 liters of Martinelli's unfiltered apple juice
2 cups of Turbinado cane sugar
Lavin EC-1118

It finished fermenting a couple days ago, now i'm waiting for it to clear up. I'll see about stabilizing it and letting it age. Thank you for the info.

Click to expand...

You're not necessarily stuck with apfelwein if that's not what you want. The last batch I did I started down the apfelwein path but changed my mind midstream and made what I would call Apple Pie Cider. Before back sweetening it tasted like a cheap white wine. Now it tastes like apple pie. Just know you have options.

Another FYI. The EC-1118 is known as an aggressive fermenter and for striping the flavor from delicate fruit based beverages. For that reason I'd say if you are going to back sweeten, apple juice concentrate would be an easy way to get some of that apple flavor back quickly.

Ahh.. Ya, Ive done some experimenting with my first batch by mixing in a teaspoon of Turbinado sugar. While it has aged about 4 months, it still had some sourness to it, but the sugar smoothed it out. I'll try that apple juice concentrate on my new batch.

Its been two weeks. fermentation has been done for about a week. I added 2Tsp of Potassium Sorbate, and about 1/4tsp of Potassium Metasulphite to stabilize the yeast, so it wont try to ferment when I back sweeten.
I'm gonna wait a while longer, let everything settle to the bottom of the Carboy before siphoning it into gallon jugs.
I've decided to only back sweeten 3 gallons of it, and leave 1 gallon as Apple Wine.

I have noticed something, since I have stabilized the yeast, i'm starting to see gas escape the airlock once more. its very slow... maybe 1 bubble an hour, and there are no bubbles on the surface, and no yeast activity inside that I can see...

Well, bottled my second batch. its more like apple wine again, but i'll let it age and see what happens.

Ive started my third, this time using the following recipe
4gal of Motts apple juice
3cups of Turbinado sugar
1 vial of English Cider Yeast WLP775

about 12hours in and fermentation is active.

Now this yeast is expensive, I wonder if its possible to reuse the yeast? Like maybe once I bottle, pour some of the must at the bottom of the carboy into the vial and add some apple juice, then refrigerate? is that possible?

Do searches on here and google for "yeast washing".