Cider flavors, and the lack thereof

[yarghble]

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?

 

[Sewer_Urchen]

Age...age...age...

Champagne yeast can ferment down to .992 and will leave the cider with little flavor, but with age that will mellow and the apple will come back. Downside, it could be 6 months from now.

 

[yarghble]

I'm not worried about the juice/agave/champagne cider, as I've done lots of stuff with the champagne yeast before, so I know what to expect there.

The one I'm asking about is the apple juice/sugar/cherry juice/american ale yeast batch.
I want to know how to get some flavor and sweetness back in the more immediate term, rather than tying up a couple cases of bottles on something that might never imporve. My last couple of cherry batches have been drinkable right out of the fermenter.

 

[gregbathurst]

The easy way is to add a splash of juice to your glass of cider.

 

[Sewer_Urchen]

True that, or add a teaspoon of sugar to a glass when you pour it...my dad likes doing that with my cider, as he likes it sweeter than I do.

 

[yarghble]

Since the cider has absolutely no flavor of its own(my roommate described it as juice-colored-water), my plan is to back sweeten with apple juice concentrate, divide it up into a few smaller batches(probably five one gallon batches), flavor those with various extracts, and then try the stove-top pasteurization to retain some sweetness. I've found strawberry, cherry, raspberry, and a bunch of others at the store; and I'm really curious as to how those would work in a cider. I called up McCormick customer support to see if they had any opinions on it, but they said they had never heard of anyone trying it, so...yeah...I guess we"ll see what happens, haha

I'll probably do all of this on sunday, so I can post an update then if anyone is interested.

 

[progmac]

i really don't care for the ciders that i fermented with champaign/wine yeast. i have some that has been aging for a year and while the apple flavor does come back, it is still thin and watery. and this was made from local apples on a local press. not mott's.

i much prefer what i've made with ale yeast.

 

[Sewer_Urchen]

It all depends on what you're brewing...I always use wine and champagne yeast, and they have all come out very flavorful, even the dry ones, but I ferment wine/champagne with the cider, not the 6% stuff you'd buy at the store, OG's usually around 1.092-098. If you're fermenting the quick stuff at 1-055ish, than the champagne yeast isn't necessary, and an ale yeast will work out just fine.

 

[progmac]

It all depends on what you're brewing...I always use wine and champagne yeast, and they have all come out very flavorful, even the dry ones, but I ferment wine/champagne with the cider, not the 6% stuff you'd buy at the store, OG's usually around 1.092-098. If you're fermenting the quick stuff at 1-055ish, than the champagne yeast isn't necessary, and an ale yeast will work out just fine.

wow, where do you get that kind of cider?

 

[blades144]

I don't know about where your at but my brew supply store carries a variety of fruit extracts right next to the yeasts in the cooler that I have been adding to my hard cider batches, I don't see why you couldn't add one at the end as they contain very little sugar and quite a bit of flavor. They come in 2oz to 6 oz sizes depending on the fruit and are intended for 5 gallon batches.

 

[Sewer_Urchen]

wow, where do you get that kind of cider?

just at the local orchard, 1 lb of sugar per gallon of juice is my standard recipe. Mix of brown and white sugar, sometimes honey. Couple of cinnamon sticks in the secondary...takes a year to make.

We're off subject...

the extracts might be a good place to look.

 

[yarghble]

I don't know about where your at but my brew supply store carries a variety of fruit extracts right next to the yeasts in the cooler that I have been adding to my hard cider batches, I don't see why you couldn't add one at the end as they contain very little sugar and quite a bit of flavor. They come in 2oz to 6 oz sizes depending on the fruit and are intended for 5 gallon batches.

I don't believe my local brew shop has anything like that, but I'll look into it. They have a kinda-limited selection, and deal mainly in bulk malt extracts/grains and brewing equipment.

As for the quality of ciders brewed with champagne yeast...they can be pretty hit or miss, but aging is always important. I mainly use that for my high gravity stuff, and stick with ale yeasts for the regular 6-9% brews. That recipe you describe, Sewer_Urchen, sounds a lot like my last big batch. OG of 1.144, it ended up at about 18%, and...lets just say it will probably always need more aging, haha

 

[blades144]

I think if you can't find those extracts you can always use frozen juice concentrates to supplement the ciders too for future batches. I did up a batch and added some guava strawberry concentrate a while back. I think the brand was Hawaii something & I added three cans and a half gallon of water or so. Sippin it right now as a matter of fact and it is very nice. Oh, I forgot to mention when I add concentrates I cut out about a gallon of apple juice to keep it at a 5 gallon batch.

 

[vegas20s]

So far, I have made a few batches of cider, that have all been back sweetened, from about 1.005 to 1.025, with juice and then bottled. I tasted every few days for carbonation. When it was just right I pasteurized. I never had a bottle grenade in the pantry BUT I've them blow up on me during or after pasteurization. Since I used both stove top and dishwasher methods, my theory is the bottles I was re-using had some type of flaw in them from the beginning and they were not the super thick official home brew bottles.

So back sweetening can be done but you have to be on the ball, it will go from perfect carbonation to over carbed in a half a day. And be prepared to have some blow up on you during pasteurization. I use the dishwasher method for this reason.

 

[yarghble]

I think if you can't find those extracts you can always use frozen juice concentrates to supplement the ciders too for future batches. I did up a batch and added some guava strawberry concentrate a while back. I think the brand was Hawaii something & I added three cans and a half gallon of water or so. Sippin it right now as a matter of fact and it is very nice. Oh, I forgot to mention when I add concentrates I cut out about a gallon of apple juice to keep it at a 5 gallon batch.

I did end up just getting concentrates to toss in there...I only ever think of apple and orange juice concentrates, and always totally forget they have other, more varied flavors! Probably because costco doesn't carry them, and that's where I get most of my cider ingredients.

Anyway, my roommate flaked on me last night to go out with a couple of cute 20-year olds(not that I blame him), so nothing beyond setup and "emptying some bottles" got done last night...hopefully we can get it sorted tonight!

Here you can see a 9 month old bottle of the 15.5%(it has mellowed out nicely), a pint glass from a local nano-brewer, and the assortment of random concentrates I picked up...the pina colada one was my girlfriend's idea, so we'll see how that goes...

 

[blades144]

I did end up just getting concentrates to toss in there...I only ever think of apple and orange juice concentrates, and always totally forget they have other, more varied flavors! Probably because costco doesn't carry them, and that's where I get most of my cider ingredients.

Anyway, my roommate flaked on me last night to go out with a couple of cute 20-year olds(not that I blame him), so nothing beyond setup and "emptying some bottles" got done last night...hopefully we can get it sorted tonight!

Here you can see a 9 month old bottle of the 15.5%(it has mellowed out nicely), a pint glass from a local nano-brewer, and the assortment of random concentrates I picked up...the pina colada one was my girlfriend's idea, so we'll see how that goes...

Let me know how that Pina Colada turns out. I found something else to try that I picked up and started a batch with. I didn't even think about purees. I strolled down the wine making section and happened upon some stuff called Vintners Harvest purees in all sorts of flavors, I chose peach. It's an additive for wine/beer batches. So I did up a batch of hard cider keeping with my original batch recipes but adding this puree. The sampling for the I.G. defenitely had tons more peach flavor than the extract ever had.

 

[yarghble]

The pina colada would probably have worked a lot better if it had gone into the primary(or maybe secondary), rather than just being tossed in right before bottling. Lots of pineapple pulp to clog up the bottling wand and sit at the top of the bottles looking unappetizing...
Haven't really tasted any of them yet, aside from a little at bottling. They've been slow to carbonate(the little soda bottles are barely stiffer than they were when I first filled them), so I haven't pasteurized yet. I'll probably just go ahead and do that this weekend whether it's ready or not, since I'd like it to all be done before I finish up this move.