First cider attempt. Have a few questions.

[esorkered]

I want to start my first batch of cider this weekend but have a few questions. Here's the tentative plan:

2.5 Gallons of apple juice
2 cans of frozen apple juice concentrate
2 lbs dark brown sugar
White Labs Super High Gravity yeast (WLP099)
1 cup of splenda to back sweeten
1/4 cup of priming sugar when bottling

1) I know that the high gravity yeast is not necessary for this but I bought it for a beer I was making and decided to use a different yeast instead. I have no immediate plans to use the yeast, so figured I could use it for this. Will this work alright?
2) Would it be alright to make this in the equipment I use for 5 gallon batches of beer? Would there be issues with extra headspace or leaving odors?
3) Any guesses on what the OG would be? Should I do anything else to alter it?
4) Any other thoughts on the recipe?

Thanks for the input.

 

[Tw0fish]

I have lots of thoughts! A few of them are even worth sharing! haha.

1) Are you gonna let it go dry and backsweeten, and then let it bottle carb? That seems like what I"m looking at, but a LOT of cider advice hinges on how you plan to finish it out.

2) I won't question your use of the superhighgravity yeast (frankly I'm curious as to what an ULTRA CIDER would taste like) but understand that the more boozy your cider is the longer it'll have to age before it's good. Speaking of that, offand you may want to add some nutrient to insure that your yeast reaches its tolerance instead of ending up with some kind of sick fermentation (because it runs out of other stuff to eat, but it's not boozed up enough to die, things might get strange.)

3) No guessing OG. Do, or do not. There is no try -- Seriously. Gravity tells you where you are, if you're done, and can make the difference between bottle and bomb. Especially if you're making something high gravity that you're feeding a ton of sugar!

 

[Daze]

this is just an estimate based on the average g of sugar in concentrate 180 and a gallon of juice 450 + the other sugar you added AND assuming the final volume of the batch is 3 gallons your OG would be around 1.87 but keep in mind there are so many things that I had to assume that it may or may not be accurate. Best advice is spend the $10 on a hydrometer to know for sure. If that is not an option I would need to know

g of sugar per can of the concentrate
g of sugar per gallon in the cider
final volume of the liquid

Then I could give you an accurate mathematically derived OG

 

[esorkered]

I was planning on a letting it finish dry and then back sweetening, followed by bottle carbing. I have a hyrdometer, but was just intereted in estimating the OG before getting started. I think I will just buy extra supplies, so I can adjust the recipe as I'm mixing everything if I decide I want to raise the OG. I think I will also bump the batch size up to 5 gallons and use my glass carboy. Thanks for the help. I think I'll be starting this tonight. I'll be sure to share the results.