Cider Question

[coloryder]

So... my wife is in love with Woodchuck, Strongbow, and Hardcore apple cider's, she loves them but they are a bit pricey $8 per 6 pack. I have a brewing kit and some internet know how, and a desire to make my own cider. I check this forum, google and wherever I can find a simple recipe with good results. I found out that to make cider you find an apple juice that you like that has no (zero) preservatives, you add this apple juice to your carboy, add 1-2 cans of concentrate (again no preservatives) and use a good yeast for the variety of cider you like. I'm thinking SCORE, this will be easy, yeah not so much.

So buy about 4 different types of apple juice that has no preservatives, I try them and so does my wife and we settle on "Simply Apple" a commercially available apple juice that is just the juice of an apple, no sugar added nothing. Find our concentrate and buy 5g of apple juice and 2 concentrate, want this stuff to be potent I guess.

Now I am a noob when it comes to making beer, much newer to making cider so I go to my LHBS and ask, I am told that Montracet is the way to go for a dry cider, which is what my wife likes. So I get everything set, sterilized, cleaned, mixxed, and ready to go.

It has been 3 weeks and my fermentation is done, no bubbles, and a regular sg. I pull a draw from the carboy and HOLY CRAP, it tastes like white wine, and not in a good way, it is SUPER dry, and has almost no flavor whatsoever of the apples, sugars, sweetness, it is bad.

My question is this...
Can I add plain old apple juice to the mix to add some flavor back to it?
Can I use Brown Sugar as priming sugar to help some of the flavor out?
Would any addative at this point do anything to get some of the apple flavors back to the brew or is it gonna taste like wine from this point on?

I will post pics and what not at your request but I didn't see a point to it at this time, since it looks really good, clear, no wierdness visually. Man o man is it dry.

thanks in advance for any help.

C

 

[TheMan]

I can't really answer you because I don't know too much about cider...but you'll probably have better (quicker) luck looking and asking in the cider forum.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/

As for my limited knowledge, I think you can add backsweeteners, unfermentable sweetners, to help it out. If you posted your recipe it would help. I do know that if you just added more apple juice it would likely just ferment it out more.

EDIT: Found this for you...https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/sweeten-cider-57944/

Sounds like splenda would help.

 

[coloryder]

So... my wife is in love with Woodchuck, Strongbow, and Hardcore apple cider's, she loves them but they are a bit pricey $8 per 6 pack. I have a brewing kit and some internet know how, and a desire to make my own cider. I check this forum, google and wherever I can find a simple recipe with good results. I found out that to make cider you find an apple juice that you like that has no (zero) preservatives, you add this apple juice to your carboy, add 1-2 cans of concentrate (again no preservatives) and use a good yeast for the variety of cider you like. I'm thinking SCORE, this will be easy, yeah not so much.

So buy about 4 different types of apple juice that has no preservatives, I try them and so does my wife and we settle on "Simply Apple" a commercially available apple juice that is just the juice of an apple, no sugar added nothing. Find our concentrate and buy 5g of apple juice and 2 concentrate, want this stuff to be potent I guess.

Now I am a noob when it comes to making beer, much newer to making cider so I go to my LHBS and ask, I am told that Montracet is the way to go for a dry cider, which is what my wife likes. So I get everything set, sterilized, cleaned, mixxed, and ready to go.

It has been 3 weeks and my fermentation is done, no bubbles, and a regular sg. I pull a draw from the carboy and HOLY CRAP, it tastes like white wine, and not in a good way, it is SUPER dry, and has almost no flavor whatsoever of the apples, sugars, sweetness, it is bad.

My question is this...
Can I add plain old apple juice to the mix to add some flavor back to it?
Can I use Brown Sugar as priming sugar to help some of the flavor out?
Would any addative at this point do anything to get some of the apple flavors back to the brew or is it gonna taste like wine from this point on?

I will post pics and what not at your request but I didn't see a point to it at this time, since it looks really good, clear, no wierdness visually. Man o man is it dry.

thanks in advance for any help.

C

Edit: I was told to post my recipe
575oz Simply Apple Apple Juice
2 5oz cans of concentrate
1 packet of Montracet dry yeast

Start date of 3-25-2010
its held a sg for 2 days now but I am no home at the moment but it was 1.003 or so again staying constant, no churning in bottle, no bubbling at airlock.

 

[TheMan]

Don't know if you saw the link I found for ya, I edited my post after the original on your other thread...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/sweeten-cider-57944/

This talks about using splenda to sweeten the cider.

 

[brewluver]

Check this link out if you keg, If you bottle it would still work you just couldn't carb it. I keep a keg of this on tap all the time women love it. I like it too but gives me a terrible hangover. I use 3 cans of concentrate to back sweeten.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/newells-groundhog-cider-woodchuck-amber-clone-85887/

 

[JefferyL]

I use apple juice concentrate to start so the beginning gravity will be much higher than what you could get with apple juice alone. Add in a little brown sugar maybe some honey. I actually use ale yeast to make cider and it turns out great.

 

[LightningInABottle]

If you let it age some of the apple flavor will come back. Also next time you might try an ale yeast like US-05 or S-04. I prefer US-05 for a clean tasting finish. I just racked a 6 gallon batch of Mott's pressed apple juice and had a few glasses last night. It reminded me of strongbow. I didn't add in anything to that batch. Its final gravity was .096. Right now I have a 6 gallon batch that has 6 lbs of Orange Blossom honey in it plus nutrients. OG 1.08. It should finish up in the 10% ABV range. I also used US-05 for this batch.

 

[coryforsenate]

What temperature did you ferment at?

In my experience, montrachet generally ferments down to about 1.000 when fermented at 67 degrees ambient temperature in a glass carboy.


Another thing. Ciders take a LONG time before they taste "good". You need to wait at least 3 months AFTER bottling before trying one.