Quick Cider Recipe recommendation

I have an extra gallon of apple cider laying around plus some extra yeast packets and would like to make up a 1 gallon batch of hard cider with them. This would be my first batch of cider by the way. Anyone have any recipes that are tasty or some tips and hints?

Would love something to toss together quickly, and be able to build off that. Something like

1 gallon cider
1 cup or so of sugar
Red star montrachet or EC-1118

Looks like you've got your most basic recipe right there, cider and yeast with some sugar to boost ABV.

You are pretty much making Apfelwein. Basically a hard apple cider popular in Germany. It's tasty, more wine-like than Woodchuck-cider-like. You can drink it still (like wine) or carbonate it like hard cider or beer.

If you have cider and not juice, you might want to get some pectic enzyme, otherwise your cider won't clear (it will just stay cloudy like it is now).

I'd go with the EC-1118 as it will chew through the sugar faster.

Your basic recipe is fine. The EC-1118 or montrachet will eat up all the sugar, basically giving you apple wine of high alcohol content.
Suggestions: Change yeast, ferment as cool as possible and away from light.
High temp + high sugar = nail polish remover flavor. Ick!
Residual sugar helps to bring the apple flavor forward, and 80 %+ attenuation is not the best idea, as well as 3 months to age after bottling before drinking sucks too.
-I guess i'm answering questions you haven't asked yet. Are you going to bottle it? If bottled, still or carbonated? How sweet do you want your finished cider?

EDIT: I was writing this before the above post loaded in.

Thunder_Chicken said:

You are pretty much making Apfelwein. Basically a hard apple cider popular in Germany. It's tasty, more wine-like than Woodchuck-cider-like. You can drink it still (like wine) or carbonate it like hard cider or beer.

If you have cider and not juice, you might want to get some pectic enzyme, otherwise your cider won't clear (it will just stay cloudy like it is now).

I'd go with the EC-1118 as it will chew through the sugar faster.

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Yep, I am also making a batch of that too soon. Been wanting to do it for awhile.

MindenMan said:

Your basic recipe is fine. The EC-1118 or montrachet will eat up all the sugar, basically giving you apple wine of high alcohol content.
Suggestions: Change yeast, ferment as cool as possible and away from light.
High temp + high sugar = nail polish remover flavor. Ick!
Residual sugar helps to bring the apple flavor forward, and 80 %+ attenuation is not the best idea, as well as 3 months to age after bottling before drinking sucks too.
-I guess i'm answering questions you haven't asked yet. Are you going to bottle it? If bottled, still or carbonated? How sweet do you want your finished cider?

EDIT: I was writing this before the above post loaded in.

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Bottle. And still first. Then I'll make another and carb it. I like sweet ciders. But I also enjoy dry. Thats why I am looking for such a simple recipe like I posted. Something I can experiment and build off of until eventually finding something for a bigger batch to have arouns all the time.

Edit: I am hoping that EdWorts Apfelwein is that

I'd make a batch of Apfelwein now and let it sit for a few months. It's dead easy and does improve with several months of aging.

While that is in the works, make a sweet cider with cider, sugar, and a good cider yeast. Many people use dry ale yeasts like Nottingham for ciders, though Nottingham will take the cider all the way down to dry, but it isn't the quickest yeast for fermenting ciders. Most every wine yeast will ferment a cider all the way to dryness.

I did a very simple cider with juice and Nottingham yeast. It was dry and very thin. I'd look into the cider recipe forum - adding tannins with oak and even tea seems to help with the body.

Thunder_Chicken said:

I'd make a batch of Apfelwein now and let it sit for a few months. It's dead easy and does improve with several months of aging.

While that is in the works, make a sweet cider with cider, sugar, and a good cider yeast. Many people use dry ale yeasts like Nottingham for ciders, though Nottingham will take the cider all the way down to dry, but it isn't the quickest yeast for fermenting ciders. Most every wine yeast will ferment a cider all the way to dryness.

I did a very simple cider with juice and Nottingham yeast. It was dry and very thin. I'd look into the cider recipe forum - adding tannins with oak and even tea seems to help with the body.

Click to expand...

With a yeast like Ec-1118 and keeping her in a cool, dark place (I live in MN and its getting nice and cold) how long am I looking at till it ferments dry? And how long usually in bottles till its tasty?

Swarley88 said:

With a yeast like Ec-1118 and keeping her in a cool, dark place (I live in MN and its getting nice and cold) how long am I looking at till it ferments dry? And how long usually in bottles till its tasty?

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Probably 2 weeks to get to dry (1.00 to 0.99 range). You can leave it in primary for a month or two to bulk condition and to clear. I racked mine off the yeast after a month into a secondary and am letting it bulk condition for several more months before I bottle. This is my second big batch and I am drinking through my last batch that I bottled in June. Very good stuff.

Apfelwein and dry ciders do well with a couple of months of aging and mellowing. You tend to get an initial alcohol hotness that buries the remaining apple flavor; this dissipates after a few months and the apple flavor begins to shine again. Really let it age before you decide to backsweeten - dry apfelwein seems to recover some of its sweetness with time. If you really must backsweeten, consider using a simple syrup or even some Sprite in the glass. You don't need much sugar to make the apple pop out and you can tune the sweetness as you like.

Brewed a gallon of just cider, sugar and yeast. And a five gallon batch of apfelwein, going to let both sit around for awhile and see how they turn out. Very excited to dive into the world of ciders.

Swarley88 said:

Brewed a gallon of just cider, sugar and yeast. And a five gallon batch of apfelwein, going to let both sit around for awhile and see how they turn out. Very excited to dive into the world of ciders.

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The one gallon batch started slow then just erupted yesterday. The Ec-1118 is munching away like crazy.