Please help fix my cider

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Tom R

Tom R

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I have a 3g keg of cider that tastes bland and tart. Almost no apple taste left after fermentation.

It's from jugs of Tree-Top apple juice, with 1-1/2 tsp of yeast nutrient. OG 1.047
I used 11g of Notty, fermented at 64-67F. FG 0.999

I have malic acid, citric acid, and "boiled apple cider syrup" available, if they would help.

Should I have pasteurized it to keep it from attenuating so much? I have another 3 gals of
juice so I can try again.
 
I imagine that this is somewhat common with "unremarkable" apple juice. I have found the same trying to make cider using juice from apples like Red Delicious or other eating apples. They are great for eating and juicing for drinking but once all of the sugars are fermented out , whatever remains is "unremarkable", bland and tart.

My suggestion would be to add whatever you have plus sugar to "improve" the flavour then heat pasteurise to prevent the additions from fermenting. The equivalent of about a teaspoon of sugar per litre will give it a slight sweetness and raise the SG to something like 1.006, two teaspoons should take it to "medium dry", etc. The trick will be to make sure that fermentation doesn't start again and chew up all of the flavour improvements. As a guide, in order to kill the yeast and stop further fermentation by pasteurisation, the cider needs to be held at 65C for about 10 minutes then allowed to cool. Maybe this is easier to do by decanting from the keg into smaller containers then pasteurising by putting them into a heated waterbath. The treated cider can then be returned to the keg.

Don't know if it will work, but it is worth a try as heating to 65C shouldn't have any effect on flavour.

I expect that chemical "pasteurisation" to kill the yeast would have the same effect. I don't know much about this approach as I tend to go as "natural" as possible with my ciders, but others may be able to offer some advice.
 
That is super dry which is probably why it has little apple flavor.

You can just add a couple of campdon tabs and after 24 hours you can backsweeten with either more juice or frozen concentrate.

I will typically ferment 4 gallons of juice, add a cup or 2 of sugar and after fermentation add a few campdon tabs and add another gallon of juice and that has the perfect level of sweetness and apple flavor, for me anyway.
 
Get a 1.5 L wine bottle, add about 1/2 can (175ml) frozen apple juice concentrate and add your fermented cider. Keep the bottle in the fridge and drink it within a week or 10 days, beyond that the concentrate will start fermenting. Try it with different flavored frozen concentrates if you can find them. Add more or less frozen concentrate according to your taste preferences. If you also brew beer, try blending a light ale with your cider, or use cheap commercial beer like Hamm's light. About 50/50 Hamm's light and homebrew cider makes a decent drink. Add more or less beer to taste.
 
Chalkyt said:
I imagine that this is somewhat common with "unremarkable" apple juice. I have found the same trying to make cider using juice from apples like Red Delicious or other eating apples. They are great for eating and juicing for drinking but once all of the sugars are fermented out , whatever remains is "unremarkable", bland and tart.

My suggestion would be to add whatever you have plus sugar to "improve" the flavour then heat pasteurise to prevent the additions from fermenting. The equivalent of about a teaspoon of sugar per litre will give it a slight sweetness and raise the SG to something like 1.006, two teaspoons should take it to "medium dry", etc. The trick will be to make sure that fermentation doesn't start again and chew up all of the flavour improvements. As a guide, in order to kill the yeast and stop further fermentation by pasteurisation, the cider needs to be held at 65C for about 10 minutes then allowed to cool. Maybe this is easier to do by decanting from the keg into smaller containers then pasteurising by putting them into a heated waterbath. The treated cider can then be returned to the keg.

Don't know if it will work, but it is worth a try as heating to 65C shouldn't have any effect on flavour.

I expect that chemical "pasteurisation" to kill the yeast would have the same effect. I don't know much about this approach as I tend to go as "natural" as possible with my ciders, but others may be able to offer some advice.
Click to expand...
It makes sense that the juice is developed for drinking, not fermenting.
I'll pasteurise it first, then give it back some flavor.
Thanks for your input!
 
Transamguy77 said:
That is super dry which is probably why it has little apple flavor.

You can just add a couple of campdon tabs and after 24 hours you can backsweeten with either more juice or frozen concentrate.

I will typically ferment 4 gallons of juice, add a cup or 2 of sugar and after fermentation add a few campdon tabs and add another gallon of juice and that has the perfect level of sweetness and apple flavor, for me anyway.
Click to expand...
Yeah, in the past I've used champagne yeast, and added lots of sugar and raisins. Took forever to ferment, and was way potent.

This time I wanted it to be more "apple-y", but it didn't work out.
I'll pasteurize (have campden, but have been meaning to try this), and then add sugar and flavor.

Thanks for the help, SWMBO will appreciate it. She likes cider, I like homebrew!
 
madscientist451 said:
Get a 1.5 L wine bottle, add about 1/2 can (175ml) frozen apple juice concentrate and add your fermented cider. Keep the bottle in the fridge and drink it within a week or 10 days, beyond that the concentrate will start fermenting. Try it with different flavored frozen concentrates if you can find them. Add more or less frozen concentrate according to your taste preferences. If you also brew beer, try blending a light ale with your cider, or use cheap commercial beer like Hamm's light. About 50/50 Hamm's light and homebrew cider makes a decent drink. Add more or less beer to taste.
Click to expand...
This is for my wife, who probably won't drink it fast enough to keep it from fermenting, so I plan to kill the yeast.

I like the idea of adding concentrate, maybe even cranberry or something crazy. Probably not homebrew, though, I like it just like it comes from the faucet!

Thanks for your insight.
 
I use notty and basic store bought juice and typically get a 5-6% cider (some sugar added) and plenty of apple flavor.
I backsweeten up to roughly 1.01 and keg carb to around 3 volumes.
Tastes like martinellis.
 
bkboiler said:
I use notty and basic store bought juice and typically get a 5-6% cider (some sugar added) and plenty of apple flavor.
I backsweeten up to roughly 1.01 and keg carb to around 3 volumes.
Tastes like martinellis.
Click to expand...
OK, that's what I'm after!
"Backsweeten" means add AJ concentrate?
 
bkboiler said:
I use notty and basic store bought juice and typically get a 5-6% cider (some sugar added) and plenty of apple flavor.
I backsweeten up to roughly 1.01 and keg carb to around 3 volumes.
Tastes like martinellis.
Click to expand...
Can you tell me what "notty" is?
I have tried bread yeast, champagne yeast and distillers yeast.
I start by adding petic enzyme and then wait an hour then add Yeast Nutrient and yeast.
My end result no matter what the yeast is very dry, hardly any apple flavor.
I haven't been adding sugar to the primary fermentation.
I forgot what the gravity of apple juice is but it ferments down to 1.000 in the primary.
I have been back sweetening with AJ concentrate.
What do you backsweeten with?
I put it back in the fermentation chamber at 70 degrees for a couple of days to carb it.
I am getting started in kegging, looking forward to trying force carbonation.
If you force carb somthing and then keep it refrigerated, will that stop or at least greatly slow down fermentation?
I have noticed my bottles get more carbed and less sweet if they set in the fridge for more than a week.
 
"Notty" is Nottingham yeast, a very popular yeast for Cider. I often use SO4 yeast for a dry cider if I am not planning to pasteurise higher than that for a sweeter cider, as it can naturally finish as high as 1.002-1.004 which leaves just a touch of sweetness when fully fermented.
 
I honestly just use table sugar to backsweeten....
I put all my effort into beer brewing properly, so my meads and ciders and wines are really lazy (and do not have complex flavors)...but I like em that way!

1. Cold crash the cider
2. Boil the table sugar in a small amount of water to make a syrup, then add some of the cider to it, using a "thief", then dump that mixture into the bottom of the keg and rack on top of it
3.purge the keg, then charge with 20psi of CO2 or so, then shake the keg to integrate the sweetener.
4. pop it in the keezer at 15psi or so to carb up

Shouldn't have any issues with the yeast restarting...and even if u do, as long as u drink from the keg every few days you'll be fine (and in the worst case every keg SHOULD have a pressure relief valve...if it does not, then don't use it!).
 
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One easy step that always adds crispness to your cider is to take the pH to between 3.2 and 3.4. I tend to nail my juice ad 3.4 before fermenting and come in pretty close to that when finished. The added little bite is a big positive. I use both malic and ascorbic in equal measures and use the pH strips to test. Note, a coke's pH is 2.8, so low 3's is not unreasonable or too acidic.

You can then also use Xylitol in the same proportions as you would table sugar to gain back some a bit of sweetness which widens the flavors.

And also as stated, a small amount of tannins helps as well.
 
Rick Stephens said:
One easy step that always adds crispness to your cider is to take the pH to between 3.2 and 3.4. I tend to nail my juice ad 3.4 before fermenting and come in pretty close to that when finished. The added little bite is a big positive. I use both malic and ascorbic in equal measures and use the pH strips to test. Note, a coke's pH is 2.8, so low 3's is not unreasonable or too acidic.

You can then also use Xylitol in the same proportions as you would table sugar to gain back some a bit of sweetness which widens the flavors.

And also as stated, a small amount of tannins helps as well.
Click to expand...
This is good advice. Bear in mind that our perception of tannins, acidity, sweetness and carbonation are sometimes interacting.
In other words, I'd carbonate and taste. Then pour a pint, chilled, and add a small amount of tannins, simple syrup and acid in order, over and over until it suits your flavor preference.
 
Rick Stephens said:
One easy step that always adds crispness to your cider is to take the pH to between 3.2 and 3.4. I tend to nail my juice ad 3.4 before fermenting and come in pretty close to that when finished. The added little bite is a big positive. I use both malic and ascorbic in equal measures and use the pH strips to test. Note, a coke's pH is 2.8, so low 3's is not unreasonable or too acidic.

You can then also use Xylitol in the same proportions as you would table sugar to gain back some a bit of sweetness which widens the flavors.

And also as stated, a small amount of tannins helps as well.
Click to expand...
Interesting. I'll break out the pH meter and see what it reads.
 
In the ciders I’ve done, the procedure is usually to back sweeten with Splenda. If you add more sugar, you are going to dry it out more or cause bottle bombs.

It is very typical for apple juice to be VERY dry, it is highly fermentable. To bring back the sweetness without risk of re-fermentation, Splenda works will. If you want to increase the apple flavor a couple clicks, they sell apple flavoring bottles at most home brew shops for this purpose. These two items are typically added to the bottling bucket. You can also experiment with other flavorings such as strawberry/kiwi which works well.
 
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I also switched to Nottingham from a personal taste. One of the early tests with champagne yeast took about a year as the added peaches drove it up to 10% and it needed some aging to get nice flavors and still be dry.
One note, I've made a few 1gal tests with Walmart gallon jugs of 'cider' and then one day decided to go to Sprouts (kinda like a whole foods but a bit cheaper) and get a better organic juice that was on sale. (To be honest I also wanted the glass jug to put sanitizer in, ha). Also used a bit of concentrated apple juice in the front end to 'get a more full apple flavor' which also bumps my alcohol and seemed a wrong direction.
I can say that batch with better juice definitely had a better rounded flavor even though this is the same recipe for 'inexpensive apple drink'. And keeping closer to the 5-5.5% seems to work for me. I prefer more dry english style cider and Nott with better juice gets that simple recipe (apfelwein).
I also don't go all the way down to FG 1, Using a bit of chemical from the wine guide to stall the yeast for 24hrs and then putting in in cold crash about a week to take the yeast flavor out (by dropping it better) makes for a nice few bottles of still cider.
 
Don't forget that real cider was typically made with apples that were not edible - too sour, too sweet, to floury , too hard too tannic. When you reach for store bought apple juice to make a cider you are making a drink that is as close to a true cider as mickey mouse is to a NYC rat. If you have ever tasted real British cider you will know how difficult it is to make this drink using apples grown for eating or juice made for the family table.
 
This was my first batch using store-bought juice.

I've made several batches using juice from an orchard (now out of business) that had several varieties mixed together. Those batches were made using lots of raisins and sugar, with champagne yeast.

The cider was very good, but 12-14% ABV, and took a year to ferment.

I'm finding out that store-bought is a different kettle of fish.
 
Interesting. Coming from the UK, I would argue that cider is drunk by the pint so it is likely to be about 5-7% ABV at most, whereas an apple wine might be 12%. So sounds like yours was a wine and not a true cider (balancing the ABV, flavor, sweetness, acidity, tannin at 5% is different than balancing these at 12-14%).
 
Tom R said:
This was my first batch using store-bought juice.

I've made several batches using juice from an orchard (now out of business) that had several varieties mixed together. Those batches were made using lots of raisins and sugar, with champagne yeast.

The cider was very good, but 12-14% ABV, and took a year to ferment.

I'm finding out that store-bought is a different kettle of fish.
Click to expand...

the raisins are a significant source of tannin (from the grape skins). So many people try to "fix" their cheap juice cider by backsweetening with sugar or Splenda, when what's really missing is tannins and acidity
 
When I have made cider from grocery store apple juice it tends to be bland. I have found a few things that help to improve the flavor. These ideas have been mentioned in this thread, but I will summarize:
* Check the pH and add acid if necessary to bring it to around 3.3 or 3.4 (add malic acid or acid blend)
* Add oak in the secondary for tannins and a more complex flavor. I use oak chips (if you oak it you need to age it for several months to round out the flavors)
* Backsweeten to help bring out the apple flavor
* Carbonation (I do bottle carbonation)

This fall I'm going to see if I can get some cider apples.
 
In a pinch, black tea also has tannins, that can be a way to compensate.
xylitol is another popular unfermentable sweetener, but I personally do not use sugar-alcohols since they give me a stomach ache.
 
Tom R said:
Yeah, in the past I've used champagne yeast, and added lots of sugar and raisins. Took forever to ferment, and was way potent.

This time I wanted it to be more "apple-y", but it didn't work out.
I'll pasteurize (have campden, but have been meaning to try this), and then add sugar and flavor.

Thanks for the help, SWMBO will appreciate it. She likes cider, I like homebrew!
Click to expand...
How would you go about bottling and carbonating if you pastaurize then add juice?
 
Not entirely clear why if you are making cider you add sugar. Cider has typically the same level of alcohol as a strong beer - about 5-7% ABV. Apple juice has a gravity, normally around about 1.050 - 1.055 (or about 6.5%) . You want to quaff cider by the pint, not the glass. An apple wine might be around 13% ABV. but that is a wine.
 
Also finishing up a gallon of cider made from fresh pressed nice from the store and treetop concentrate. Finished fermenting in under a week using Lavlin k-1116 yeast. Came out very tart and bland. Killed the yeast with sorbate and metabilsulfite. Backsweetened with a whole can of concentrate. It helped but I think tannins and acid are off. This is my first batch of hard cider.

Need to hit the LHBS for supplies first.

Following this post. Good info. Thanx all
 

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