First cider...Hows it sound?

So after 3 batches of coopers extract beer kits, I decided to try a cider. Today was the perfect day, since it was nice out, wife and kids weren't home, and I was brewing a belgian quad anyway, so while I had all my gear going, I figured I may as well throw the cider together. Here's my recipe.

1 gallon King Kullen pasteurized apple juice.
4 cans Old Orchard AJ concentrate
1/2 gallon spring water
1/2 pound dark brown sugar
1/2 pound belgian candi sugar
1 cup pale DME
1 packet Red Star Montrachet
1/2 teaspoon yeast nutrient

I boiled together the water, sugars and DME, and added it the 4 cans of concentrate. Added gallon of AJ to the mixture, rehydrated the yeast and dissolved the yeast nutrient, and put it all together in a 2.5 gallon water jug with spigot. OG 1.090.

So anybody have any ideas on what I should expect. i don't know how low the FG will get, but if it gets down to .999 like I've read a lot of ciders get down to, it'll give me a 13 percent ABV. I taste all my hydro samples, but this is the first one I drank fully. Tastes really good, and surprisingly not as sweet as I thought. Hope this one turns out good.

That's a very high OG! Keep us all updated on how everything goes.

That's an extreme amount of sugar. Your going to have some show to watch once the fermentation really gets going.

Keep that one fermenting at a cool temp! Its going to go insane with all that sugar and may give some really off flavors. A concoction like that is like BBQ, you go 'low and slow'....At 13%, it may take some time to condition to a nice tasty product

well less than 24 hours after pitching, it's not really doing what I expected. Maybe because I used dry yeast. I also did an extract belgian quad yesterday and the quad is going crazy. Then again, I used a belgian abbey II starter, and a avile of wlp500 thanks to the 1.100 SG. Even though the montrachet is giving the 1.090 SG cider a good beating, it's not really keeping up with the quad. I thought they would be doing the same thing, but again, maybe it's the dry yeast.....which I did rehydrate. Anyway, so far so good. It's going good, not even 24 hours into the ferment, so I'd guess when I leave for work at 6 am, it'll be making a lot more noise. One burp every three seconds is still a decent pace at this point. 70 degrees has been steady, so temp shoildn't be a problem, unless I should get it down a couple of ticks??? I'll keep it updated, so in case anyone wants to give it a shot, they'll have somewhat of a guide of what to expect.

Mmmm quad...just drank one of mine last night that I made almost a year ago...almost ready

You might keep an eye on that temp. I find that I like to ferment my ciders at 60-ish, where as most beer I do I like 65. The 'fart' is more intense at 70, but will clear out over time.

I wanted to get it a little lower, to mid 60's, but I've been putting it off for a month, so I was happy to just get the two batches in the fermenters. SWMBO isn't the type to just say "Go ahead honey, i'll take care of our two kids while you brew your beer and cider". So I got home before her one day and just took out the banjo burner and got things going. So i didn't get a chance to get ice and prepare a proper ice bath. So at eleven o'clock when my 30 month old woke up, wifey was too busy doing work stuff, so i just threw it in at 70 and let it sit. The ambient temp was what I was hoping for to cool it down a bit, but lucky me, we hit a heat wave in NYC. I could throw my frozen PET bottles in there with some water, but I may just let it sit and do it's thing. I have a 6 gallon BB and a 2.5 gallon water jug in one container in my closet, so I don't want to mess with the temps too much and throw either batch off. I figure 70 is safe, so secondary and bottle conditioning should take care of most of any wacky tastes which may occur. I'm happy at the progress, and happy that I finally got my cider fermenting, so things are looking good. Besides, with a potential for a 14 percenter, I don't think taste will matter after a couple anyway......LOL. Can't wait to get the finished product carbed and cooled.

Well I said I'd keep it updated, so here's the update. After 13 days in primary, and 8 in secondary, I bottled. And if it means anything, I'm drinking chilled uncarbed cider as I type. I used a better bottle to bottle this one, so the last pint or so that wouldn't come out, I just poured it into a glass and threw it in the fridge. I wouldn't have done that, but the hydro sample was promising. To me, this is drinkable right now, but some would probably say it needs to chill out awhile. I will throw it in my closet and forget about it for about a month, if I can stand to.

On the nose, it's harsh, smells like something undrinkable. But once it goes in the mouth, it's a pleasant surprise. Tastes like apple juice mixed with some kind of liquor. But not a bad alcohol burn. At 11.26 (FG was 1.004) it's surprisingly smooth. Not as smooth as a 4% cider, but not a real shocker. I'd say after a month in the bottle, this would pass for a cider that was conditioned for much longer.

I'd definitely do this one again, and soon. I'd like to secondary it for a couple more weeks to see how it changes, but I don't have a fermenter to tie up for 2 or 3 months. Just starting to get my rotation going, and a long secondary would kill that. So for now I think I'll keep my exact same recipe and do it in the same type of fermenter. Hope someone else tries this one out.