Young cider taste (store bought VS freshly pressed)

I was racking some more cider to secondary and had 2 different batch. One was made with Wal Mart pure juice(pasteurized) and one with freshly pressed cider(unpasteurized).

Both cider where at 1.003 and I decided to taste both to see what the difference would be. The Wal Mart cider was pretty good and was almost drinkable right away but the freshly pressed cider was totally disgusting ... very sour. Anyone know what the reason could be for such a huge difference in taste ? The wal mart product only had yeast added to it while the freshly pressed stuff had campted at first with pectin enzyme, citric acid(very little) and bentonite. Safale S-04 was used for both.

Both cider have been fermenting for 10 weeks in primary and I plan on leaving them in secondary until march(4 months) and then bottle.

report back after aging! how similar was the taste before you fermented by the way?

how similar was the taste before you fermented by the way?

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The Wal Mart juice was terrible and I was afraid to ferment it but the freshly pressed juice was fantastic ... very sweet.

the only thing that concern me is I found 3 very small fruit fly floating in one of my fermenting bucket from the freshly pressed cider ... should I be worried ?

Why did you all all that junk to the fresh stuff if it tasted good before fermentation?

using campden makes the juice taste sour for quite some time, but will burn off in a few months. bentonite is used to clear cider after fermentation, not before, and usually isnt needed. acid should only be added if your pH is too high and use malic, not citric. pectin enzyme usually isnt needed for unpasteurized juice, as that will usually clear on its own (although some apple varieties dont).

Why did you all all that junk to the fresh stuff if it tasted good before fermentation?

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Used the Campden because it was unpasteurized
Used bentonite has I had really bad luck in the clear cider department in my previous batch. Bentonite is also more effective if used during fermentation and sparkaloid if used after.
Citric acid was used for taste as cider was good and sweet but not acid enough for my personal taste ... I added very little and it was barely noticeable.
Pectin enzyme was also used as a precaution in order to get a clear cider and I know it does not affect taste so I always uses it to be on the safe side.

Since I know you know your **** CvilleKevin, I'm released your saying the sour taste will burn off with time ... do you think 4 months is sufficient ?

campden, bentonite, floculite, sparklefresh, pectic enzyme, citric acid, acid flashback, bacon fatback,,,,,, do you add any apple juice?
whoops i'm being flippant again.. sorry... i just don't see the necessity of adding loads of stuff to cider. adding yeast if you don't trust the natural ones, or if you use non-fresh pressed juice, i understand. sometimes i add yeast. and i can see the argument for adding sulfites in some situations, but not all, i *almost* never use them. but the rest?? do you need them? aging will take care of the taste and most of the clearing, care will assure you don't oxidize, and if it's a bit cloudy, that's authentic!!

From some of my reading, one of the common tricks used to make cider stay cloudy is to add vitamin C to the apples....

Frequently, you see 2 different flavors of fruit stand juice/fresh cider -- those that stay clear and those that stay cloudy.... It seems like most of the ciders I see around here are mostly clear with a bunch of sediment in the bottom... Shake it up and it turns cloudy.... These frequently fall clear when they ferment.....

The other sort seems to stay quite cloudy, even after freezing/thawing the cider.... My luck with these is that they don't fall nearly as clear when fermenting and Cold Crashing doesn't make them look nearly as pretty..... unless you add some pectic enzyme.... then they usually behave more like the other ones... Some reading I did explained the vitamin C thing... Made sense....

Thanks

John