help me please

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jjpaylor

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So I tried making cider and I think I failed horribly. I used organic pastuerized apple juice and did a batch with just a yeast packet split into 1/5 for each gallon. I used an ale yeast that guy at the store suggested.

I opened some up recently and it taste quite horrible and is super cloudy. My wife thinks it tastes vinegary but I used good air locks and made sure they were oxygen free.

So I did the fermentation in the 1 gallon glass jars that the juice came in. I never did a secondary just used the glass.

I did that fermentation for a month which I think was too long. I then racked off the yeast into my bottling bucket and added about 1/8 cup of sugar to the bottling bucket. It has been bottling for about a week and I opened up the bottles and not enough carb yet but just worried if the entire batch is bad

Let me know where I could have went wrong. I sterilized everything with iodine and boiling water
 
have you and/or your wife tasted very dry, very young cider before? it can be pretty sour. i think that sometimes people taste it for the first time, taste sour, make the mental association between cider and cider vinegar, and declare it ruined. dunno if that's the case with you guys. everything you did sounds right to me, 1 month is a good time for primary fermentation in my book. cider can still be very cloudy in that time, or it can be very clear, there is a lot of variability. i refuse to work in cups so i have no idea if that is an appropriate amount of priming sugar but 1 week isn't very long to expect carbonation. can be many weeks. i make dry cider, but i don't drink it for 6-8 months; it changes quite a bit with age.
 
have you and/or your wife tasted very dry, very young cider before? it can be pretty sour. i think that sometimes people taste it for the first time, taste sour, make the mental association between cider and cider vinegar, and declare it ruined. dunno if that's the case with you guys. everything you did sounds right to me, 1 month is a good time for primary fermentation in my book. cider can still be very cloudy in that time, or it can be very clear, there is a lot of variability. i refuse to work in cups so i have no idea if that is an appropriate amount of priming sugar but 1 week isn't very long to expect carbonation. can be many weeks. i make dry cider, but i don't drink it for 6-8 months; it changes quite a bit with age.

Okay so how can i sweeten it and when do I sweeten so I don't get bottle bombs.

The sugar conversion would equal about 125mL of sugar boiled into a simple syrup.

So you seem knowledgeable where can I get a good recipe for semi-dry cider such as strongbow or something like an English cider.

I have years of ale-brewing experience but am now allergic so thought I would make a cider
 
If I'm not mistaken, 1/8 cup is 1 fluid ounce - roughly translating to 30 ml (perhaps 26 grams for typical table sugar).

I agree with Dinnerstick that young dry ciders tend to be quite sour and unpalatable.
 
You can backsweeten it with a non fermentable such as truvia or splenda to your taste and then add the needed amount of sugar in order to carbonate.
 
you are not alone in your quest for a fizzy sweet cider. that sounds a bit star trek but if you read any 10 threads on this site probably 6 of them pose a similar question. the most practical ways are to keg and force carbonate, or the ever popular bottle pasteurization method, where you sweeten, bottle, and then heat the bottles in a controlled manner such that the yeast die and you survive. undercook and the bottles eventually overcarb and explode, overcook and the bottles explode for you right then and there like fireworks. do it just right and it works surprisingly well:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

or indeed the unfermentable sugar trick- i have never done this as i can't stand the idea but many people swear it tastes good. however, if you add anything to your half-carbed cider that you have now, make sure it is dissolved in liquid first as adding anything in powder form will make foam volcanoes and your cider will end up on the floor. but you could (i'm talking out of my backside here) open a bottle and sugar it up until you like the taste, or maybe try apple juice concentrate, make note of how much sugar it took to get it how you like it, make a sugar/concentrate solution of known strength, open the bottles, pour out a bit and dispense a measured amount into each say using a 50ml syringe (w/o needle!), recap, let them carb, pasteurize. it's just an idea. or let them sit and open one in august
 
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