First cider

So I just purchased 3 gallons of preservative free, UV pasteurized cider from a local apple orchard. This will be my first crack at a hard cider so I'm wondering if this sounds about right: I plan to use the 3 gallons of cider, dissolve 3lbs of brown sugar into it, pitch with a wine or beer yeast (suggestions?) and hang a cinnamon stick into the fermenter with some fishing line. Let it ferment out for a few weeks, secondary then bottle

rmr9 said:

So I just purchased 3 gallons of preservative free, UV pasteurized cider from a local apple orchard. This will be my first crack at a hard cider so I'm wondering if this sounds about right: I plan to use the 3 gallons of cider, dissolve 3lbs of brown sugar into it, pitch with a wine or beer yeast (suggestions?) and hang a cinnamon stick into the fermenter with some fishing line. Let it ferment out for a few weeks, secondary then bottle

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Well that depends, what kind of cider are you shooting for? Sweet and carbed? Dry and still? 3 lbs of sugar is a lot, I used 2 lbs for my 5 gallon batch, so it all depends on how much alcohol you want in it. This will be rocket fuel and need to mellow if you leave it as is. I would add the cinnamon stick to the secondary as I've heard that the yeast eating the cinnamon in the primary can produce off flavors. As for a yeast I used nottingham, which seems to be popular, but if your going with 3 lbs regardless you will want a yeast that can take the higher abv that will be produced. Lavin 1113 or a champagne yeast. Also what size fermenter are you using? If its a 3.5 gallon that's fine. You want to leave about a half gallon of head space for the eventual krausen head.

I'm not actually too sure about carbed or still, or if i want it to be a real kicker...I may tone the sugar down to 1.5 but I do want it to be sweet