Making My Cider Taste More Like Cider

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Sluggo

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I have two 3 gallon batches of hard cider that have been aging for about 2 months now. They were made with identical ingredients (including adding some extra sugar for more boozy goodness), but I used two different strains of yeast to try a side-by-side comparison. Both are a little thin tasting and have lost almost all of their apple flavor.

I really want them to taste more cidery before I keg them and am wondering how to do that without restarting fermentation. I'm thinking of adding either more cider or apple juice concentrate. Probably concentrate to minimize the dilution of alcohol.

How can I go about making sure the yeast is dead before I add the concentrate? Just add campden tablets (how many per 3 gallon batch) or is there more to it?

Thanks in advance.
 
What yeasts did you use?
I just made a 5 gallon batch, and used a Wyeast cider yeast, and a combination of fresh pressed pasturized cider and mass produced apple juice, and it has a nice tart apple taste to it.
 
I used White Labs English Cider and White Labs Sweet Mead. I think the lack of flavor might be due to the added sugar and more alcohol making them both pretty dry. There is some apple flavor there, but I' guess I'm looking for more of a sweet flavor.
 
i pretty much has the same question you did. the yeasts i were wine yeasts i already had. i was told to try adding some tannin to the mix. 1/8 tsp per gallon and then to taste. this will bring back your "bite" i'm going to be doing this in the next couple days and i'll try to remember to post the results. with respect to concentrate, if you add something with a preservative, you won't get fermentation. which may be ok unless you want to carbonate it. like i said, i haven't done this yet, just passing along info given to me.

jason
 
Use fruitier yeasts, such as wheat or British style ale's or better a cider specific yeast. Wine yeast will leave it tasting (oddly enough) like a wine!
 
I just finished a cider, when it hit about 1.005 I racked it to a corny keg with a few crushed up campden tabs, gelatin, and some wine conditioner which has invert sugar and potassium sulfate. Cooled the keg for about two weeks, then racked off the yeast into another keg, it is relatively clear, and I added apple juice concentrate to sweeten it and add back apple flavor. Added about 32oz of concentrate to ~4.5 gallons of cider and it tasted great.

edit: I used the sweet mead yeast for this one
 
yeah, I was warned at my LHBS to NOT use wine yeasts, as they ferment out so dry that I would not have much cider flavor left, and the yeast does nothing to add flavor to the cider. The cider yeast I used came out pretty good, but next time I want to try something like a british ale yeast, or a hefe yeast.
 
Ive always used Red Star Cote des Blancs for my still cider, adding some cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, no measurements, just sprinkle some into secondary. Potassium sorbate to inhibit yeast activity, then sweeten to taste with table sugar.
 
fatboy570 said:
Ive always used Red Star Cote des Blancs for my still cider, adding some cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, no measurements, just sprinkle some into secondary. Potassium sorbate to inhibit yeast activity, then sweeten to taste with table sugar.

so you take a highly attenuative yeast and inhibit it? why not just start with a yeast that is less attenuative? and don't ask me if that is really a word, i just got done drinking a WHOLE lot of my first hard cider... as far as hardness goes, it ranks somewhere around diamonds. WOW... what a kick :drunk: :drunk: :drunk:
 
I've been busy as hell for a while and havent posted near as much as I would like but I have been doing a lot of reading (here and other sources) and just couldnt pass up this thread . . .

The absolutely most important thing about cidermaking is the juice. My last few batches were made from regular store bought juice/cider and while they tasted ok they were just WAY too thin, clean and dry. I tried fecking around with the yeasts and while that help it WAS NOT the solution.

Try to find a source of GOOD cider. What I mean by this is apples that were grown, blended and pressed specificly for drinking. I found a small (about 16 acre) antique apple orchard very near to me and got my juice from them this year and started a new batch. First thing I did was b4 I even pitched the yeast was taste a sample and HOLY CRAP the flavor was so big it was like getting slapped in the face with a whole apple tree, just amazing.

I pitched my yeast and let it go to town and when I racked it to a secondary the other day I re-sampled it and the flavor is definetly hanging in there MUCH better then it ever has b4.

I have talked to the people who run the orchard and besides the fact they are a bunch of tree hugging hippie freeks (the juice is organic too not that I care) they are VERY knowledgeable about hard cider. They harvest, press and freeze their juice all in the same day and then sell it on the weekends. They say the reason the juice holds up so well is that they blend it specificly to have a good balance of sugar and tannins from apples that are specificly grown for drinking and the large companies just take any apple thats not "perfect looking" and press it reguardless of the type of apple it is.

I'll try to go find a page I was reading the other day about apples that are actually good for cider . . .

**EDIT**
http://homepage.ntlworld.com/scrumpy/cider/ciderapp.htm
http://mtvernon.wsu.edu/frt_hort/ciderapples.htm
http://www.ukcider.co.uk/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
 
So back to my original question...

How can I kill the yeast before I sweeten it or add concentrate? I have 3 gallons...how many campden tablets would I use for that amount? Do I need to add anything else to kill it?
 
Sluggo said:
So back to my original question...

How can I kill the yeast before I sweeten it or add concentrate? I have 3 gallons...how many campden tablets would I use for that amount? Do I need to add anything else to kill it?
You can use 3-6 cambden tablets, but I think you are barking up the wrong tree. I don't believe that you will be able to "fix" these batches and make them into something they are not.

Then again, you could add sorbate. That will stop any and all yeast.

IMHO, you should just let the two batches ride, and accept them for what they are. Start a new batch, and this time, use plain old ale yeast. If I use wine or champagne yeast, I don't end up with cider. I get apple wine. If I use ale yeast, I get cider, like what the Brits enjoy. I just sampled my first batch of cider in years. I used my old notes, and started with sweet apple cider from the orchard. THe OG was around 1.057. I didn't add sugar. For a 7-gallon batch of cider, I added 3 tsp. each of yeast energizer, acid blend, malic acid, pectic enzyme, 1.5 tsp grape tannins, and 2 cambden tablets. I used 2 packs of Munton dry ale yeast. It is done fermenting, and I sampled it as I was racking it off of the lees. It tasted like pub cider that needed more time to mature.
 
I adjusted my cider recipe by adding three cans of concentrate during fermentation on top of the regular Edworts recipe. I added the concentrate in increments (worked it up)as the fermentation rolled on. The three cans of concentrate left the cider pretty potent but very tasty with good body! Definately tastes like apple cider more than wine. I used White labs cider yeast.
 
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