First Batch of Hard Cider

Well I took a hydrometer reading of my first batch of hard cider and its definitely done. I tasted it and its not what I expected. I was looking for a lot of apple cider flavor with some bite and what I got was 5 gallons of wine that tastes dry like Pinot Grigio or champaign. Actually its quite good. Now I don't know what to do with it. Do I prime it or do I just bottle it leaving it flat? Does anyone know if I can bring back some apple flavor?

I used 5 gallons of Apple juice and I added 4 lbs of corn sugar and Montrachet yeast. I have a feeling the extra corn sugar made it dry and yeast I used produced the wine flavor.

Sounds like apfelwein. Give it about 6-8 months in the bottle, and you should get some apple flavor back.

Its gonna taste dry unless you back sweeten it since there's no sugar left.
The yeast is probably whats killing the apple flavor as the cider I did with that had the same issue I recall, however it did come back with aging in the bottles. I would carb it but that's just my personal preference for ciders, or you could carb half and keep the other half still...

LastKnight said:

Sounds like apfelwein. Give it about 6-8 months in the bottle, and you should get some apple flavor back.

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What he said.

you have a few options - you can prime it and bottle carb it if you want a sparkling beverage (my preferance for this particular beverage)

you can bottle it as is "still" (sans carbonation)

the stronger apple flavor will return with age - but it's fine to drink it now if you like it as is... I do all the time (I have to force myself to save a few bottles if i want to age it) be careful though apfelwein will kick your ass square... VERY quick. the recipe you used is identical to the highly esteemed EdWort's apfelwien... except you used an extra 2 POUNDS of sugar - so your ABV has got to be pretty high...

if you want to add an extra bit of apple flavor AND bottle carb (for a 5 gallon batch this is) add a 16 ounce can of frozen apple concentrate to your bottling bucket. the sugar in the concentrate is adaquate to carbonate -plus you just dumped in the equivelent to a half gallon of applejuice flavor.

I'll never prime apple wine or cider with anything else but Apple concentrate - it's easy, and adds flavor AND "tiny bubbles".

if you want to sweeten it - use splenda or Lactose (anything that won't ferment more)