First try at cider, a little too dry.

[Kreefer]

So first off, did not take any gravity readings because I did not take this too seriously as it was apples and pears from my neighbors' yards. But my cider came out nearly too dry to drink.

As instructed by many posts I used a mix of sweet and tart fruit. I cooked it (did not boil, as advised just enough heat to kill off the nasties), used dry champagne yeast starter, last couple of days in secondary I added some gelatin to clarify (worked great). Primary time 1 week, secondary 2 weeks.

Couple of questions, is there any reason to believe as it ages it will be less tart? Secondly, they still have tons of fruit so I may try again, would using a cider yeast instead perhaps make it less tart? (I was thinking about using campden this time and not cooking, by the way). Should I consider adding some honey too?

I tried the pressed apples before cooking it, it was not overly sweet, but certainly palatable. And I don't want a really sweet cider, but this is just a little too dry. Much dryer than all of the commercial ciders that I have liked.

Thanks for the thoughts!

 

[oldmate]

You could add sugar so that the yeast will convert the same amount of sugar, leaving some residual sugar.

You could also backsweeten with some store bought apple juice or sugar, to taste of course.

 

[Yooper]

If you add sugar, it'll just ferment out. There are a couple of ways to get a sweeter cider- one is to stabilize the cider with sorbate and sulfites, and then sweeten to taste. You can also use non-fermentable sweeteners, like splenda.

Most ciders made the way you describe will be dry. Take a look at some of our sticky threads on making a sweeter cider- that should help!

 

[Schecter]

You need to take a walk over to Papper's post on stove top pasteurizing.

 

[Kreefer]

thanks guys! I will check out some other posts.