ginger good and gala cider - what to add?

I just picked up 6 gallons of cider made with ginger gold and gala apples, which makes for a sweeter cider. Should I add anything to it to counter the fact that there are no tart apples in the cider?

Gala is definitely a sweet apple, not sure about it's cider quality but I would guess poor.

Around these parts ginger gold is a relatively tart apple. It's parentage being 'Golden Delicious' (sweet) X 'Newtown Pippin'(almost bitter, sharp) X 'Unknown'(maybe Winesap??? also sharp). I'm thinking you may be ok with this blend assuming it's relatively close to 50/50. Did you test the SG and pH yet? this should help narrow it down.

I just placed an order with a local orchard for a bunch of Ginger Golds today to make a tester batch. It may need some tannin added.

It is definitely a sweet cider. There is hardly any tart to it at all. It is about 50 -50 with gala and ginger gold. I bought a 1/4 peck Ot the ginger Golds to try them out and they were soft and sweet. I didn't take a gravity reading until after I added 6 lbs of honey. It ended up at 1.076 @ 66 degrees. I'm about to add the vial of white labs English cider yeast. I do have tannin and malic acid on hand.

Well, here is the recipe for the cider (or cyser, as I used honey) I came up with:

6 gallons local cider (Fairmount Orchard, Signal Mountain, TN)
6 pounds local honey (Sand Mountain 100% pure raw honey)
1 vial of White Labs English cider yeast
3 tsp. pectic enzyme
1/2 tsp. tannin
3-1/2 tsp. malic acid

I dissovled the honey into 1/3 gallon of the cider before adding it to the rest in my fermentation bucket. The yeast was left out of the fridge to warm up by this point so I added that into a small starter consisting of water, sugar, and some of the honey/cider mixture. I stirred it all in pretty good and I closed the lid with airlock attached.

The OG was 1.076 @ 66 degrees F.

I'll keep an eye on the taste to see if it needs more acidity or astringency. I'm confident that I'm good on the malic acid, but I stayed conservative with the amount of tannin I added.

Sounds delicious! Any chance you got an SG reading on just the juice pre-honey?

I'm always curious about such things, here in upstate NY we have to occasionally lightly chapetalize juice to get to 7% while I've met some cidermakers in the mid-Atlantic region who sometimes hit 10% ABV due to the natural sugars. But then Gala and Ginger Gold are very early apples, maybe the difference is lessened over the proportionally more similar growing season.

No I didn't take the gravity reading until after I added the honey. It too a little while longer than I'm used to with the dry yeast, but she is bubbling away now.

Well, I forgot to update this thread, so here goes:

I racked the cyser into the secondary about 10 days or so ago. The gravity was at 1.000 even. I checked the gravity again last night and it dropped to .996. I don't see this going lower than that. It is at 10.3% ABV right now, which seems on the high side of the cider yeast I used. It tastes pretty strong and dry. I cut it with some fresh cider to make it more drinkable. I'll let this sit for another month and ill check it again. I'll definitely be backsweetening this batch.

Oh, and the color is pretty fantastic

I wish I can edit the title of this post, but here goes...

I haven't tasted this in a month. Last time I tried it, it was very dry and had a strong alcohol taste and aroma. Today, the flavor and harshness has mellowed significantly to where it is enjoyable to drink and there is a very distinct honey aroma to it. It smells and tastes great right now, but I'm going to resist temptation to fish it and ill let it sit another month to see where it's at. I was hoping it would be ready for Halloween, and as it stands, I am happy with the flavor, but I think it will taste even better if I let it go longer.

Edit: that is a picture of a different cider, but I can't delete it from the homebrew talk app.