First Cider.... Thought I would share :)

[drev500]

Hey guys! Well I just started brewing about 2 months ago. Fall was in full swing so I wanted to try myself at some hard cider. It took from start to finish about 7 weeks. I wanted to press my own apples but being a college a student I felt like it was unpractical/money was tight so I went with store bought apple juice.

I wanted a high alcohol content but good taste.....

The high alcohol was achieved but not the great tastes

I did two five gallon batches. Each batch I added 6lbs of light brown sugar and 2lbs of honey (I wanted to achieve that high alcohol) and I would guess like 3 tbs of cinnamon. It tasted great before going into the carboys. I added a packet of champagne to each batch.

After about 2-3 weeks I racked to secondary then let sit in secondary tonight. My roommate said lets try it out so I put a 1/2 gal into a pot and heated it up on the stove.

Took a sip and woohhooo was it potent. I started with an O.G. of 1.113 and got a F.G. of .998, about 15%. The taste is not that great so I diluted the 1/2 gal of hard cider in the pot with some regular apple juice and added some more brown sugar and cinnamon. After the additions it is definitely enjoyable to drink. I am a couple glasses into it and it is definitely starting to sneak up on me

I did a lot of research before this. Majority of the recipes I read were either ale or champagne yeast. The cider is good now after the renditions I did but I am going to try ale yeast next time so I can get more flavor then potency.

 

[ehedge20]

You problem with flavor is too much alcohol masking the flavor. Typically when I make a high gravity cider I use 2# dark and 2# light sugar and achieve around 11%.

The trick is to start with 4 gal. and then after primary fermentation is complete and the mixture has set for about a month add another gallon of juice and let sit another couple of months.

The alcohol will continue to rise slowly but adding the juice in the secondary phase of fermentation will preserve a lot of the flavor that is scrubbed out in the primary fermentation.

 

[dinnerstick]

what about that big secondary that now has a bunch of airspace in it? you are risking vinegarization (yes that's the correct term) there...
if you top that back up all the way asap and manage to forget about it for a very long time you might be in business

 

[ehedge20]

Using a 5 gallon better bottle or bucket will not leave much headspace at all in the secondary. Additionally the sugar from the added juice means the yeast will eat and produce enough co2 to blanket the mixture.

 

[drev500]

When I put them in secondary I put them in 5 gallon carboys. There was very little head space. I'm going to drain a gallon from the other carboy and top them both off and see what happens. Thanks guys for your input!

 

[ditchbanker]

i think dinnerstick was concerned that you took the half gallon out of a full carboy. That then makes a .5 gallon less than full carboy, which leads to headspace. At least that's how I read his comment. If that's what he was thinking, I agree. If not, I agree with me.