Cider tastes way too strong!!

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jacobean

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Ok december 11 I made my first hard cider. Nothing too crazy. I made three gallons, useing smucker apple butter boiled into 3 quarts or so of water.
then i pasturized some apple cider and dumped that all into a 3 gallon main fermenter. Pitched yeast at about 90 F.

Everything started out great. within six hours i had my airlock going like snot bubbles on a 5 year old with asthma!

three days later i took 2 pounds of sugar cubes and dumped that in there for good measure.

before the yeast was pitched i had a SG of 1.050, and today since it has been a little over a week, i took a reading ( and small taste) of about 1.000 maybe lower the bubbles were in the way, so an accurate reading was a little hard.

It is so dry!!! and potent too. I know my S G was 1.050 but with the added 2 pounds of sugar i can only imagine its got to be up there in A V

Now the yeast i used was what the brew store recommended.
it was a red star wine yeast called cote des blancs.

I imagine this is why my hard cider is tasting more like wine/champagne than hard cider.

but what im wondering is this, everyone is going on about how aging will make this taste better, and obviously i wasnt hoping to make three gallons of apple wine. so will this taste better after racking, and should i rack it now even though its still bubbling once every 25 seconds? how long should i age this?
and can anyone tell me why the brew store would recommend wine yeast over something a little less potent?
seriously i like alcohol as much as the next guy, but after three sips my tongue was numb and i felt like i could pass out...
 
Well, it's less about the yeast and more about continually feeding the thing more fermentables (sugar cubes...just for good measure). I would let it finish fermenting and then you could possible rack it and bulk age it or bottle it and age it.
 
well it tasted good at least, just not what i was expecting... heh! i do have a 5 gallon batch of pilsner to hold me over while this bad boy ages. so thats good at least.
 
Perhaps too much sugar is the culprit. You essentially created an apple wine by adding 2 lbs. of sugar to 3 gallons. Regular apple juice will have a OG of 1.050-1.060. That will produce a lower alcohol more appley tasting cider. A long period of bulk aging will mellow out the alcohol flavor and some of the apple smell/flavor may reappear. Good luck.
 
Sugar has 45 points/lb. 2 lbs added 90 points, or 30 points in 3 gallons.

So your 1.050 effectively went to 1.080. Fermenting to 1.000 would give you 10.5% abv.

Leave it where it is for at least a few more weeks.
 
actually i decided since i did any estimate, to bottle it. the yeast was to tolerant, and i didnt have any campden tabs, so i primed it and bottled it. hoping in a year it taste like a super nice champagne wine.... or at least i hope... i might need to get some of the chemicals like tannic acid and stuff to balance it out. very very acidic right now.
 
If it's very acidic, I doubt that adding acid would help!

If this happens again, you could try backsweetening it with something unfermentable like lactose or splenda.

You can also do this in the glass if you find it too dry at drinking time. Just add a pinch of splenda (might dissolve it in a tiny bit of water since you carbonated your cider) and pour on it. Some folks just add a splash of Sprite to sweeten it up.
 
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