cider and honey?

Looking to make my first cider (or meader lol). So a recipe that I found said add the ingredients below and shake daily. I have done made mead before, so I was thinking I could skip the shaking and just add a pack of wine yeast to it. Then add the cinnamon sticks to a secondary. What do you all think? Should I add some yeast nutrient as well. Just looking for some thought and opinions.

1 gallon cider
1 cup honey
and a few cinnamon sticks

You're going to get lots of advice. I'd like to be the first

I have made about 50 gallons of cider over the last year and a half or so. I have only ever shaken when i pitched and not even always then. My amateur opinion is that it isn't as important with cider as mead. Then again, I always use yeast nutrient but not all the other things you use in meads. Adding the extra honey upfront will make more alcohol, but might not add any sweetness to the final product depending on the attenuation of the yeast*. If you're looking for a dry cider with more alcohol, add the honey up front. if you want a sweet and/or fizzy cider, wait till after the ferment and backsweeten with the honey. There's a little more to it than that, but it would be helpful to know what you want for the final product.

I will say that cider making seems to be far more forgiving than mead making, but I'm only at the just-about-start-my-first-batch stage.

I've never done cinnamon sticks in my cider. I'm told that about half a stick per gallon will impart a nice flavor. I soaked several sticks in vodka for two weeks and use the resultant potion to flavor my cider with cinnamon. i find it's easier to add exactly how much I want that way. Good luck!

*speaking of yeast, I usually use an ale yeast in my ciders. You don't have to use wine or champagne yeasts.

Thanks RPowell!

I thought it might add a little bit of a honey profile/flavor to it. Was thinking of going with the honey since I have a little extra from my next mead. I have been reading other post and saw how sugar is added and figured to use the honey instead. But from what you said looks like I should do the back sweetening.

As for mead guess I have just been lucky I have been winging it. I just follow the recipe and transfer to secondary when it has stopped bubbling. Then 4 months later bottle, I aim for a 6 month total time. Now that I am trying to get more scientific I will probably mess it up lol. Have a hydrometer now that I want to use on the cider first.

The yeast, at the moment I have some Red Star champagne/dry wine yest, Lalvin EC-118 sparkling wine and in the mail Wyeast ACT1388. I read somewhere that EC-118 was used for ciders. My one gallon carboys and yeast arrived today so I am planning on this weekend to brew. :rockin:

It may be blasphemy, but i never use a hydrometer on cider after figuring out the OG and that just to estimate the alcohol content. I almost always backsweeten with honey. I like the flavor. Now, one time I did put wildflower honey in primary and backsweetened with table sugar (because I ran out of honey and didn't feel like going to the store). The honey DID leave floral notes behind. It was nice. On my first batch, I added some dark brown sugar and ended with burnt molasses notes on the back end. It was... interesting.

make sure to read the pasteurization sticky in this forum if you're going to try to make it fizzy... if you're going to make a sweet still cider, then you'll need to hit it with "stuff" to kill the yeast before bottling. live yeast + backsweetening = bottle bomb potential

I have never made a non-fizzy cider, though

I have tried, in the past, to make a cider making faq
Perhaps it will be useful to you.

Yeast really need oxygen during the active part of fermentation so shaking presumably aerates the must and the cyser. I tend to stir rather than shake (I am Scottish but never worked for M) but aerating a couple of times a day reduces the stress on the yeast.
Some aggressive yeasts will remove much of the volatile flavor and aromatic molecules. Your call, of course, but there are many less aggressive wine yeasts than EC-1118 which I believe is known as a killer yeast as it does not play well with any other yeast. 71B , for example, tends to smooth the rough edges of the malic acid in apples. 47 D is another yeast that many mead makers use.