Peach cider sugar ideas

I plan on making 2 half gallon batches of peach cider. I plan on using US-04 yeast and pasturized peach cider. It has some citric acid in it as a preservative, but in small amounts (as the producer told me). Best I can learn the citric acid shouldn't be too much of an issue for the yeast to ignore or chew through.

Anyway. I plan on using granulated table sugar, about .4lbs. The other half gallon .4lbs of brown sugar. Seeing as this is my first cider attempt, I'm curious as to what kind of taste variations I can expect between the two batches. It's kind of a moot point seeing as I'll be personally finding out in a few months once everything is done.

On a side note, should I boil the sugars down into a sugar syrup before I add them or just toss the sugar in with the peach cider and hope for the best?

Citric Acid is Vitamin C.

Why are you adding .4#'s of sugar? What is your OG of just the peach juice. .4# translates to roughly 5% ABV boost. I would try it without the sugar first unless you have sugarless peaches and a OG under 1.030 and maybe boost to 1.05 to 1.06.

Just add the straight sugar shake well.

Should be pretty good though. Higher ABV = Longer wait periods. A 1/2 gallon batch isn't worth making it taste like crap for the first year.

Ascorbic acid (e300) is Vitamin C. While very similar Citric acid (e330) does not contain Vitamin C. Ascorbic acid is more bitter while citric acid is more sour.

I was basing my sugar calcs off an apfelwein recipe I found. Hadn't thought to check the SP of the peach cider to see what it already was. I might just go and buy another gallon of the peach cider and go with a quarter cup of brown sugar in one gallon for flavoring. Or maybe try a tablespoon or two of molasses for the same effect. Thoughts?