Cider attempt, has sour bite to it

Couple weeks ago, i bought a gallon of apple cider, not apple juice, at the grocery store, found that it had some type of preservative and just decided to wing it, its only a gallon. However i ran out of yeast and i had bread yeast on hand so i pitched some of that. OG was around 1.05 with a cup of table sugar added. Three weeks later its down to 1.003 however the taste is rather sour.

My question- since i really had no hopes in the first place, my question is it normal under these conditions to have a sour taste to it. I can taste the apple"ness" but boyy is it sour. thoughts suggestions and btw this is my first attempt at hard cider.

Cider takes a long time to mellow. I'm guessing the bread yeast didn't help the flavor either.

If you're set on drinking it now you can back-sweeten with cider, or some other sweetener. Sweeten it to taste and chill it to keep it from re-fermenting. As long as you don't let it warm up it should be good to go. Since it's only a gallon you can probably just keep it in the fridge.

In the future, try using some champagne or beer yeast and let your final product sit or a few months to condition. The taste will improve over time. Even then, back-sweetening is always an option.

Just curious, what was the preservative?

You may have ended up with some wild yeast or other micro-org which contributed to the off taste. I usually add some metabisulfite to my ciders to kill the nasties. I use wyeast cider yeast (4766)

I believe it was sorbate? if that is correct, and im not to worried when i have more stuff around ill attempt a batch and let it age

You will always have problems with the potassium sorbate. It prevents yeast from multiplying, so unless you toss in a huge batch of yeast you'll probably get limited fermentation. Ideally, you want preservative-free cider.

I have used cider with pottasium sorbate before. Sometimes it was all I could find. I usually cut it with some frozen preservative-free apple juice to dilute the levels. I also make a huge yeast starter. It's worked.

Well the thing is , it fermented fine actually, went almost three or four days with bubbles almost every 15-30 seconds. It dropped from 1.05 to 1.003 so I would say, at least from what i know, the fermentation went well?!!? I actually dont mind the sourness either its just that i wasnt expecting it!!