Seat of my Pants Cider (looking for feedback)

First off, Hi, all! I joined up a couple weeks ago, but I've just been lurking since then.

I am pretty new to the whole home brewing thing, but already I'm addicted. I have my first non-Mr. Beer 5 gallon batch of beer fermenting away and I just bottled my first cider today. The beer recipe is pretty straight up out of "The Complete Joy of Home Brewing," so I know it's gonna work just fine. (I did have this odd "barnyard" smell coming off of it at first which had me worried, but I read Rev's thread about just giving it time, so I'm not gonna worry.) The cider, on the other hand, I kinda winged. I did keep pretty detailed notes though, and that is what I am about to copy into this post for all to see. I'm looking for things I did right and things I did wrong and how I could make my next batch better.

Thanks.

Fel Slider Cider


Brew date: 3/3/12 Bottling date: 3/17/12 Expected first tasting: 4/7/12
2 Gallon Batch
1.072 Starting sp. gr. 1.004 Ending sp. gr.
8.8% ABV

2 Gallons Apple Juice
1c White Sugar
1c Dark Brown Sugar
2” Stick Cinnamon
5 Allspice Berries
4 Cloves
1 Packet Cote des Blancs Yeast

Bring 1 Gal of Juice with sugar in it to 170 Degrees. Add spice and hold there for 10 min. In meantime add 1 Gal of Cold Juice to fermenter. Remove Spices from Hot Juice and pour Hot into cold. When mixture is down to 70 degrees, add bloomed yeast.

3/5/12 Fermenting at a good clip

3/9/12 Bubbles have slowed down but still audibly bubbling.

3/10/12 1 Week. Still merrily fermenting along.

3/12/12 1.011 sp. gr. (7.9% ABV) Tastes of apple and has a good kick. I don’t really taste the spices, but maybe as it mellows with age.

3/17/12 2 Weeks. 1.004 sp. gr. (8.8% ABV) Definitely tastes of apple. Dry. “Hot.” Still no taste of spice but hopefully it will come out with age. Bottled with 3/8 c. Corn sugar to carbonate. Drank a chilled bottle tonight. Some of the spice is coming through. and if you drink it slowly, it tastes just like apple juice. Is this right? Time will tell.

Notes

Next time I want to try adding a can of frozen concentrate to the boil and a cup of molasses. These will definitely make it stronger, but the main intent is to make it sweeter with the frozen concentrate and more complex with the molasses.

Yes, I have anal notes like this for my beer too.

I think your tasting notes at the end sound pretty close to what the recipe should produce. My personal opinion would be to drop the cane sugar next time. It really doesn't do much for you and might have even masked the spices. (with the higher ABV)

As for the spices themselves...a lot of people say they ferment the cider and then rack it over onto the spices in secondary for bulk aging. (like dry-hopping beer)

If you were shooting for spiced apple wine, I'd let this one mellow for a few months and you'll probably end up with a great finished product.

Thanks for the tips. When I started this, I hadn't heard of apple wine. it wasn't till later when I was actually doing some research and looking on boards like this that I realized that with the higher ABV, it would end up more of an apple wine than a cider. I was thinking maybe, in my concern to not overpower with the spices, I had under spiced.