Sorry if there's already a thread about this, but I didn't see one directly relating to my topic.
I have two batches of cider I'm about to bottle- one is just plain motts apple juice with agave nectar in place of sugar(curiosity, and costco had it for cheap) and champagne yeast to ferment; while the other was motts apple juice, wegmans brand cherry cocktail juice, some granulated sugar, and american ale yeast. I have made a couple of batches of the cherry before using the same recipe, but with apple and eve cherry cocktail, and they turned out very well...however, when I sampled some of this latest batch last night, I discovered that it was almost completely without flavor, and the gravity had gotten all the way down to 1.000!
So now I'm wondering what I can do to add some flavor and a little sweetness without creating a pantry full of 1liter grenades. I read through the pasteurizing thread, and that looked like an option for adding sweetness without over-carbonating, but I'm open to other, less intensive ideas. No artificial sweeteners though...I think they taste awful, and they give me terrible headaches.
As for flavoring, I'm wondering how well some of the extracts from the baking aisle in the grocery store would work(and if there even is a cherry extract there)...I've also seen some cherry flavor oils online, but those seem to be mainly aimed at people making their own lip balm and the like.
So.......any advice? Anyone run into similar problems?
I have two batches of cider I'm about to bottle- one is just plain motts apple juice with agave nectar in place of sugar(curiosity, and costco had it for cheap) and champagne yeast to ferment; while the other was motts apple juice, wegmans brand cherry cocktail juice, some granulated sugar, and american ale yeast. I have made a couple of batches of the cherry before using the same recipe, but with apple and eve cherry cocktail, and they turned out very well...however, when I sampled some of this latest batch last night, I discovered that it was almost completely without flavor, and the gravity had gotten all the way down to 1.000!
So now I'm wondering what I can do to add some flavor and a little sweetness without creating a pantry full of 1liter grenades. I read through the pasteurizing thread, and that looked like an option for adding sweetness without over-carbonating, but I'm open to other, less intensive ideas. No artificial sweeteners though...I think they taste awful, and they give me terrible headaches.
As for flavoring, I'm wondering how well some of the extracts from the baking aisle in the grocery store would work(and if there even is a cherry extract there)...I've also seen some cherry flavor oils online, but those seem to be mainly aimed at people making their own lip balm and the like.
So.......any advice? Anyone run into similar problems?