Cyser

Hello. New here and new to brewing. I brewed fifteen gallons of cider this fall, three five gallon batches. Pressed the apples added sugars and honey. I used a champagne yeast, a white wine yeast, and an ale yeast. The champagne and wine have went still and clear. They are very dry and potent. The ale batch is still fermenting after two months. Is that normal? Anyways the big question that I have is I want the ale batch to be somewhat sweet and still. I am planning on bottling it in wine bottles with corks. I do not want to use any additives. Any advice? I am very new to this and didnt know anything about checking the gravity and sugar. I did use one pound sugar / one gallon cider.

You mentioned honey, did you add it to all 3, or just the ale yeast batch? Honey takes a while to ferment.
Regards, GF.

I did use honey in all three batches. I think it was two pounds in each batch.

So you added a total of 5lbs sugar & 2lbs honey to each 5 gallon batch? Did you add any yeast nutrient/energizer and/or D.A.P.? Added nutrients will help, but juice with roughly 7lbs added sugars could be a tough ferment for an ale yeast. Were you trying to balance the residual sugar with the yeasts listed alcohol tolerance for a sweet/semisweet high ABV cider? Just curious.

I'd say take a hydrometer reading & go from there. Might be all you need to do is leave it be & let it do it's thing, hydrometer is really the only way to be sure. BTW, which ale yeast did you use?
Regards, GF.

I will have to check the ale yeast I am not sure. Five pounds total sugar, three pounds honey two pounds brown sugar. Thats it nothing else. Fresh pressed cider, honey and sugar. I simmered that a bit and let it cool. Then I added the yeast. I guess I will just see how it goes. After it goes still if it is not a touch sweet then maybe I will just have to add a bit of honey before I serve it. Thanks for the replies.

I really didnt know what I was doing. I have always made fresh cider and have never made it into hard cider. I just decided to do it for the first time this year. I picked up the supplies and figured I would try a few different yeast. I had no idea what I would end up with other that an alcoholic beverage.

The ale cider went still. It turned out just how I hoped it would. It is the sweetest one out of the three. Less potent than the wine and champagne cider but still feels warm going down. The yeasts used were EC-1118, D-47 and the ale was Safale US-05. Man this stuff is good!