My cider...still searching the right way.

[Giovanni]

Hi everybody!
This spring I made cider, with the following recipe, for a 23 liters batch:
5 kg of granny smith apple
1 kg of white sugar
champagne yeast
water
4 l of green apple juice, already pastorized.
I cut the apples in small pieces, then I hand milled them, till I saw some juice.
Fermentation went on for ten days, after others ten days I bottled it, whith some priming sugar.
It went out at first very yeasty, then bready, and now has a veryy good apple taste and good carbonation.
What do you think I should change? Could I improve this recipe or I should rethink all the procedure?
Giovanni

 

[BigKahuna]

I like the recipe, but I would set it in secondary (Clearing tank) for a month at least. That will help reduce the junk in the bottles, and reduce the "Yeasty" and "Bready" flavors that have to age out in the bottle.

 

[Giovanni]

Thank you very much for your kind reply!
About the secondary I was wondering if I should carbonate inside it or just in the bottle...
Also I've read that cider usually is "affected" by a secondary fermentation process, the so called malo-lactic fermentation, where maleic acid is fermented to lactic acid, this process is a benefit for the taste, as smoothes the acid flavour.
Should I try to let it happens in the secondary?

 

[Tusch]

I say Kahuna is right as usual. Ferment as you did in the primary, then siphon it off into another carboy. Let it sit there until it clears completely. The rule of thumb for clearing is you should be able to read a newspaper through the carboy with no problems. Once it is good and clear, feel free to either let it age some more, or bottle then. Oh and you only add priming sugar when you are just about to bottle, if you add more sugar in secondary it will just ferment away increasing the abv.

 

[Giovanni]

ok, thanks for your tips!
I'm also wondering if adding more easily fermentable sugar, as fructosio (maybe this is not the right way to write it), would improve the final abv.

What is the best yeast strain?