Bitter cider help

[audioruss]

this is my first batch of cider. Bottled about 10 days ago. Just opened one tonight to check the carbonation and it had a very bitter after taste. It smells great, good apple aroma. When I drink it it first had just a hint of sweetness then goes dry in the mouth the ends with a very bitter aftertaste. I tasted before bottling and I don’t think it had the bitterness. Will the bitterness go away with age (it fermented for about 2 weeks, then racked for two weeks, then 10 days in the bottle) or am I stuck with the bitterness? Did something go wrong during the fermentation?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Audioruss and welcome -
Malic acid - the dominant acid in apples - is a harsh acid and depending on the source of the juice you might have a blend of apples that were significantly high in malic. (in other words a great deal of this strong acid). One possible solution is to have the cider go through an MLF fermentation - this is bacterial and will transform the malic to lactic acid and lactic is a far less harsh acid. You might find that after 9 months to a year MLF bacteria that were in the cider will have converted some of the malic without you having to add the bacterial culture. Often (but not always) cider completely changes its character after a length of time aging.

 

[madscientist451]

It might get better with age, maybe not. If you also brew beer, blend it with a beer of your choice to balance some of the bitterness. Mead wold be another thing to blend it with.

 

[Drewed]

What did you add to make the carbonation in the bottle? And what was your gravity reading before you bottled?

 

[audioruss]

I fermented to 1.000 (although I did not adjust for temperature, guessing it would have been about 65 degrees) and bottled. I used 3 Tbs. of honey that I thinned in 1/2 cup of hot water that I boiled then let cool. I used bottled drinking water. The resulting cider is lightly carbed. One gallon of cider

What did you add to make the carbonation in the bottle? And what was your gravity reading before you bottled?

 

[Drewed]

Any chance you honey and water didn't mix right away and you scorched or burned it a bit?

 

[audioruss]

Hi thanks for the reply. I just sampled another bottle and it is 100% better. I don’t know if the improvement was due to an extra 2 weeks conditioning in the bottle or if the first bottle had some contamination. If the others are like the one I just finished off I will be very pleased.

Any chance you honey and water didn't mix right away and you scorched or burned it a bit?

 

[Drewed]

Lol. Always sample more than one bottle. Sampling one right after another will lead to each new bottle tasting better than the previous....