How bout them APPLES!

I did my first cider tonight. It is a recipe that I got form a friend of mine.

5 - gal. 100%Pure Apple Juice (no preservatives)
2 - lb. dark brown sugar
2 - lb. Red Raisins
1 - pack safale us 05

I dissolved the sugar into 2 gal. of juice while soaking the raisins in vodka to kill anything wild on them. He had used safale 04 english yeast but I changed it because his was a little too dry for my taste.
Put everything in bucket and added my rehydrated yeast.

My OG is 1.070

I plan on leaving it in primary for 3 weeks then racking it on top of some fruit. I am open to any suggestions for what kind of fruit to use in secondary. Could use apples but I wanted something more creative.
Any suggestions?

budrockdiesel said:

...He had used safale 04 english yeast but I changed it because his was a little too dry for my taste...

Click to expand...

I hate to tell you this, but S-05 attenuates (ferments) out more than S-04, and you're likely to end up with an even drier cider

Based on my experience with S-05 you're probably going to end up around 1.008 and near 8.3% ABV. Of course that's based on my use with beer, not cider.

I've got a cider going right now that I used Nottingham in, and it's probably going to end up on the dry side as well, just not quite as dry as Apfelwein.

I'll bet both our ciders turn out plenty drinkable!

Oh well, I guess I really need to put a lot of fruit in the secondary.

Any suggestions on the fruit??

Yeah, I dunno. I'm personally am not into adding fruit or other stuff in secondary because I would be concerned about infection. I know it's probably not a concern once primary's done, but I still kind of just figure that if I didn't put it in to begin with, it ain't going in later.

The raisins in your recipe should add some complexity to your cider already. If I were you I'd let it be and see how it turns out. It looks like it might be pretty good to me. Just not as sweet as you might have wanted.

That said, just keep an eye on this thread and someone else is pretty likely to let you know what worked for them. Your cider's got time.

I'd have to agree, I wouldn't neccessarily add any fruit at secondary. What you might do is taste it when the primary fermention is done. If it's drier then you would like you could halt the fermentaion with potassium sorbate and back sweeten with more apple juice to get the sweetness you want. That is assuming you don't want to carbonate it in the bottle.

Thanks guys. I am a NOOB to all of this. I tried some of the cider from the guy that gave me the recipe and it was good, just not sweet. I was just wondering if I could soak the fruit in vodka ar spray it with starsan. Maybe take another gallon of juice, put some berries or slices of apples in the juice and then drop in some camdon tablets, 2 days later rack the cider on top of it?
I dont know, something...
Thanks again guys.

Can any one at least suggest on how I should back sweeten it after it is done?
Thanks

It really depends on how you intend to finish your cider. If you intend to have sparkling cider, you can't really add regular fermentable sweeteners because they'll just ferment out to dry again. You can use something like Splenda or Lactose though as neither one will fement, so you can add them to taste. From what I understand, a little Splenda goes a long way.

If you don't mind still cider, then you can kill off the yeast with Campden tablets or sorbate or potassium metabisulfite. Once the yeast is dead you can use more natural sweeteners, like regular sugar, or even better apple juice concentrate, to sweeten you cider.