5 Gal of fresh cider... now what?

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I just got my hands on some fresh apple cider from the local orchard and I want to make a good hard cider. Just like most things on the internet, I can't find a straight answer. I have brown/white sugar, yeast nutrient, champagne yeast and basic household ingredients. I would like to see what quantities and what exactly I should add to my batch. Last time I tried I came out with apple wine that was awful. Id like to NOT do that this time. Any advice is greatly appreciated.:confused:
 
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/fooling-around-cider-198006/- this link is a pretty darn good one. Im in agreement that honey is the way to go especially in your case with champagne yeast because of the slow ferment. check out the threads but defiantly don't wait to long to to start i had a batch spontaneously ferment of me alot faster than i had expected.

so how much honey should I add to the batch, and do I need to heat it up with some of the cider before adding it to the batch? Sorry I'm still fairly new at this.
 
I'm in this exact boat. My sister got 5 gallons of fresh cider for me, which is being stored frozen until Thanksgiving. My plan was to ferment 4g dry, add the last gallon along with K-Sorbate, and K-meta to end up with a sweet, low alcohol cider for next summer. I would force carbonate in a keg. Is that a reasonable idea?

Sorry for the pseudo thread hijack. Also, the above link didn't work for me...
 
If you dont like it dry, dont use champagne or wine yeast, it will ferment it dry and you will get apple wine again. You lose the advantage of fresh juice if you ferment all the natural apple sugars off.

Ale and wheat yeast are easier to control for final sweetness, but still dont taste that great if you let them ferment to dryness. If you have a kegging setup, you can cold crash and force carbonate, or if you want to bottle carbonate, you can use the method in the sticky. If you cold crash, dont add nutrient, it will make the yeast harder to stop. K-sorbate is very effective, but leaves a bad taste.

When I add honey, I add 2 or 3 lbs to bring the juice up to 1.060 - 1.065. You can just pour it in the carboy, put a rubber bung in the carboy and roll it around on the floor until it dissolves (make sure the bung fits tight)
 
so if I use an ale yeast how long should I keep it in my primary for so it wont get too dry? im looking to have a final product that tastes like cider but boozey. I can't imagine that's too hard. I've also read that adding apple concentrate during bottling can help the flavor but that just souunds like cheating to me
 
so if I use an ale yeast how long should I keep it in my primary for so it wont get too dry? im looking to have a final product that tastes like cider but boozey. I can't imagine that's too hard. I've also read that adding apple concentrate during bottling can help the flavor but that just souunds like cheating to me

If you want boozey you need to add about 1-2 pounds of sugar or honey per gallon. I think honey tastes better. If you push it up to 2 lbs/gall you will need to use champagne yeast though, also be patient.
 
I bottle a batch today that I had used ale yeast it fermented really quickly i used white labs wlp200. I wanted to stop fermentation early to get as close as possible to how woodchuck and strongbow taste... if your looking for that level of sweetness than you may have to stop fermentation at 1.01. I let mine go to far and ended up adding lactose (a non fermenting sugar) to my primary about 2 days before bottling. it seems a bit dry right now but i have faith ill get alot of apple flavor back after aout 3 months of aging... all that said the ale yeast leaves alot of the apple flavor and if you ferment to 1.01 from about 1.06 your at about 6.5% abv which i think is just fine for what i was looking for.
 
If you want boozey you need to add about 1-2 pounds of sugar or honey per gallon. I think honey tastes better. If you push it up to 2 lbs/gall you will need to use champagne yeast though, also be patient.

2lbs of sugar per gallon will deffinatly give you boozy. OG north of 1.120 or so.
 
Forget the apple juice, just add 3 lbs sugar per gallon. That will start you off at 1.135; that will get you around 17%. Not a lot of flavor, but boozy! Just remember the yeast nutrient.
 
use 4 lbs of sugar for 5 gallons of juice. throw in 1 pack of montrachet wine yeast. yield is 5 gallons at 14%, but more importantly, it's good-tasting cider. not my recipe, but i use it since it works
 
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