Newbie needing some direction

[BigKris]

OK, last year I pressed for the first time and tried to do a cider. Poor variety of apples mostly mac's Cortland's and 1-2 other var. Pitched champagne yeast did not take good notes, but my sanitation is very good. Put up 2-5 gallon batches, and 1- 1 gallon batch. I did nothing to the 5 gal batches, but added some dark dme to the 1 gal batch. Long story short the 1 gal came out OK if you cut it with fresh cider, the other 2 batches though smelled like paint thinner and sulfur, and tasted like jet fuel. I would not like a repeat performance of last year.

10/3/2009 Pressing
80 gallons total, OG 1.042
Macintosh, Cortland, Spencer, Empire, Spartan, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious
and Brown Russett

I ordered wyeast sweet mead yeast and the cider yeast to try this year hoping these would be better. Now for my questions. Adding brown sugar or other adjuncts? Is it necessary to add the sugar or what does it add to it?
What is cold crashing? What purpose does it serve? Can you control your FG depending on how sweet or dry you want the cider?
I hope someone may be of help and I thank you in advance, Kris

 

[Teromous]

Adding sugar increases the amount of fermentable ingredients in your brew, that the yeast can eat. Giving the yeast more food, means that they will create more alcohol, provided that they can survive in high levels of alcohol. From the Wyeast website, that strain of yeast can sustain around 11% ABV and leaves about 2-3% residual sugar so it could make a decently strong cider. When adding sugar, you should make sure that you don't make your gravity too high or the yeast will have problems. Adding yeast energizer can help out in a high gravity brew though.

To be honest, I don't know why people are so against using yeast neutrient and energizers. The bottles are a couple of bucks and you don't have to use that much.

Cold crashing is just what it sounds like. You bring the overall temperature of your brew to a point significantly lower than what is required for your yeast to ferment. This can either suspend the yeast or almost completely crash the yeast at which point it will flocculate. The best way to crash cider, is to remove as much yeast as you can and reduce the temperature. After you reach your desired gravity, rack it off to a secondary carboy/bucket and chill it. It doesn't have to be 10°F but shoot for around 40°F or lower. After around 24 hours take it out of the fridge or whatever you use to chill it, and rack it over to a tertiary carboy with an airlock for aging. It might seem like an overly cautious way to do things, but it's a safe bet.