So I made cider now what?

[mikie_sholtz]

First time cider maker here. Did some research on different way to go about making cider and finally decided on this. I wanted something with a higher abv.
I started with 5 gallon of fresh pressed cider and 2 lbs of light brown sugar (og 1.065) treated it with campdem waited 24 hours then pitched my yeast (wlp775) along with yeast energizer and yeast nutrients in the proper amount for the five gallons. I left it in primary for 1 month until transferring last night to clear it up a bit more. As far as fermentation everything went great. I tasted it while transferring last night and it just seems blah. It still has some apple aroma and kinda a appleish taste but it kinda reminds me of cheap wine.
Its just nothing great. I realize its setting at about 8.5% abv and Its a little fusel. But outside of that it really just seems lacking in everything else as far as a cider goes. So where do I go from here?

 

[danath34]

wait some more.

 

[bernardsmith]

I don't think the problem may be its lack of age. You may want to increase the TA by adding acid blend. You may want to increase the tannic level by adding tannins (grape tannins, tannins from chestnuts, from black tea, from oak. Apple juice made for non alcohol drinking is likely to be made from eating apples and eating apples may not always have enough acidity or tannins when you remove the sugar to make the flavor snap.
The other thing is that fruit wines (and for all intents and purposes except taxes, cider is a wine) often need some back sweetening to bring forward the fruit flavor. What is to stop you from stabilizing the cider and adding sweetener. You might bench test your cider to see how much sugar it needs.

 

[mikie_sholtz]

I have a bag of medium toasted oak chips. Should I put them right into secondary or make a tincture. I was planning on dosing it with an acid blend as well.

 

[MindenMan]

Is it possible your cider got too warm? WLP775 is known to produce fusels above 70*F fermentation temperature, not 70*F room temperature. You don't mention any type of temperature control, or temperature readings during the first few days. High proof ciders need lots of bottle time to let the flavor "come back", and fusels will dissipate but it may take months of bottle aging to do so.
As mentioned above, a little sweetness will usually do wonders to improve the flavor, and not knowing what variety(s) of apples were juiced, a lack of tannic acid can also leave your cider tasting "blah". Do you want still or carbonated cider?
As far as adding oak chips, I would wait until you are a little more familiar with making cider before adding adjuncts of any kind.