Add tartness to cider?

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TXBrewGuy

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Hi all:

I'm making a batch of cider for my wife (and I!) We tasted a hydrometer sample last week, and it's at FG. She commented that she would like a little more tartness in the flavor. Could I add acid blend, or one of the individual acids to achieve this? Just add tartaric acid, maybe?

This is my first batch of Graff, btw. The sample we had was excellent even warm and uncarbed!

Zach
 
Adding something like an acid blend would make sense... Any good LHBS with wine section should have such a thing. They usually measure it in ph and all this other stuff...

What you do is 1 Ask them about making it more tart and follow their advice. If they don't have any, or seem off, then 2. get some acid blend. This will have several acids, not just tartaric. Take a measured sample of the cider, add a measured sample of the acid (you might need a REALLY good scale for this something with milli grams) and flavor to taste. Do math and add that much in...

Basically first figure out how much tastes good, then add it in to the whole batch, maybe 1/2 at a time to keep it low. Easy to put in, very difficult if not nearly impossible to get out.
 
Acid blend, ascorbic acid, malic acid, or citric acid all do well with cider. I don't know about tartaric acid.:mug:
 
I would also add acid blend to taste. Acid blend is a combination of tartaric, malic, and citric acid. Tartaric is found in grapes and malic in apples. I usually dissolve it in a little boiled water first. An accurate scale would make things easier. If you don't have one, I'd add about 1 level tsp per gallon if you think acidity is very low. As you get closer, I'd only add about 1/2 tsp per gallon.

Low acidity is common in much of the cider and juice sold in the US. If you make much cider, I would suggest investing in an acid test kit and an accurate scale and adjusting acidity prefermentation. You can get both for under $20. Here are two examples at Northern Brewer and Ebay.
http://www.northernbrewer.com/winem...ing-measuring/wine-testing/acid-test-kit.html
http://cgi.ebay.com/0-1g-500g-Gram-...778?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item2c561f34fa
Acidity is typically measured in grams per liter. If you test your cider or juice and it's at 6.0 grams per liter and you know you like your ciders around 8.0, then you just add 2 grams of acid per liter of juice. Simple.
 
Thanks for the responses :)

I'm gonna give the acid blend a shot, adding a small amount to a measured portion of the cider until the taste is right, then scaling that up to the full batch.
 
Acid blend does a pretty respectable job of getting rid of the "Blah" in bland cider.....

If you can get ahold of it - try some Malic acid instead.... Advantage there is that Malic Acid = the characteristic "Tart Green Apple Flavor" - so it helps boost the "Appley-ness" ... not just to make it not so blah.... though there certainly isn't anything wrong with wine maker's acid blend what-so-ever.... It's just that "Appley" is generally a defect in wine tasting.... so wine acid blend doesn't add that sort of taste....

Thanks
 
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