Removing junk from fermentation, and "Watering down" ?

My Toffee Apple Cider is fermenting nicely and almost finished, but there is an absolute tonne of stuff settled on the bottom (2 inches or so.) I only have a gallon batch, so that's a bit of a blow, but here's a few questions;

1) This cider uses an edited version of Edwort's Apfelwein basically, and it's came out very strong - is there any way I can weaken it and increase the amount at the same time, without affecting the flavour too much? Watering it down, basically?

2) Would it be worth running the cider through a muslin bag rather than using a syphon first, allowing it to settle out again, and then racking it off? Would this stop me losing so much?

Interested to hear others opinions on this. So far I have been racking off all the crap at the bottom and then topping off with more of the original juice. Seems to be working well if you are looking to reduce the ABV anyway but would be a bit galling if you wanted to keep your ABV as close to where it was as possible.

Yeah, I'm bottling too so increasing the FG could be an issue. I don't like the idea of topping up with fresh juice particularly, as I'd like to keep this as close to its fermented out self as possible...

Why don't you just leave out the added sugars if you followed the apfelwein recipe? That would weaken it, and you wouldn't really be losing any flavors really since those simple sugars are just fermenting out.
Personally I'd be scared about running juice through bags and whatnot and would just make double to deal with the loss of product but that's just me.

I'd wait until after fermentation until it clears, rack off the sediment and then stabilise and 'water down' with the same juice you used at the start.

^^ As I say, my main worry here is that the juice will add more sugar, and I'm not sure whether to branch into pasteurizing yet. I also want to retain the original flavour as much as possible...but meh, if I'm out of options, that will do.

bpm2000: it's already on, and the burnt honey is imperative to the flavour of the cider.

That's why you stabilise it with K-meta and K-sorbate. Unless you're worried about it being dry/sweet?

I guess I don't see the problem adding water to it, unless you are trying to turn one gallon into like three gallons. Sure, that could really water it down to an unenjoyable point. If you are trying to increase the volume substantially then you could brew another gallon or whatever more watered down or with less sugars and then blend the batches together.