Cider critique

[Bull_Brewer]

Hey all,

This is my first cider, I haven't made it yet, so please, all feedback is welcome.

Ingredients:
4 gal apple juice
1 gal Water
1 lb brown sugar
1 lb honey
6 oz molasses
5 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp nutmeg

Technique:
-boil water and cinnamon sticks for 10 min, remove from heat
-add brown sugar, honey, molasses, and nutmeg
-pour all onto my American Pale Ale (us-05) yeast cake
-ferment at 70 F for 10 days
-rack to secondary with 2 tsp of potassium bisulfate
-wait 5 days to clear
-sweeten with 2 cans apple juice concentrate and 1 cup brown sugar
-bottle still or keg

Thanks for your feedback!

 

[CiderRules]

No offense, if you are going to use so much water you might as well make a graff. Also, it is going to be really hot at first and take some time to mellow out. It will probably taste watered down and very little flavor will come from the sugar you use.

 

[Yooper]

Hey all,

This is my first cider, I haven't made it yet, so please, all feedback is welcome.

Ingredients:
4 gal apple juice
1 gal Water
1 lb brown sugar
1 lb honey
6 oz molasses
5 cinnamon sticks
1 tsp nutmeg

Technique:
-boil water and cinnamon sticks for 10 min, remove from heat
-add brown sugar, honey, molasses, and nutmeg
-pour all onto my American Pale Ale (us-05) yeast cake
-ferment at 70 F for 10 days
-rack to secondary with 2 tsp of potassium bisulfate
-wait 5 days to clear
-sweeten with 2 cans apple juice concentrate and 1 cup brown sugar
-bottle still or keg

Thanks for your feedback!

I wouldn't use any water if you want to have a cider. I'd also skip the brown sugar and molasses (fermented out it doesn't taste very good) and the extra sugar. Sugar added to apple juice usually makes more of an apple wine, because the sugar ferments out. You can add cinnamon and nutmeg if you want, but it's usually easier to add it to taste after it's done. It's very easy to overdo, and I'm not a fan of spices in my cider unless it's a mulled cider or something like that.

I don't think it'll be clear in 15 days, and maybe not even done.

If you want to sweeten it at bottling, make sure you stabilize it with sorbate because the bottles will explode if you don't stabilize it first.

You can stabilize when clear, but only when it's no longer dropping lees after at least a month or so. Your timetable is very short to avoid bottle boms.

 

[yarghble]

I had written you this long, detailed critique, but then my phone reloaded the page and erased it all, so now you get the quick and dirty version.

5 gal apple cider/juice
1-2 cinnamon sticks in the primary, not five boiled in separate water
Pick one of the honey/molasses/brown sugar group and go with that, otherwise you're not going to get enough flavor from any of them to make a difference
The nutmeg sounds okay, if that's what you want...maybe a little more, though

I can't speak to potassium bisulfate, or anything like that, but two cans of apple juice concentrate at bottling sounds like a recipe for a bunch of glass shrapnel. And, as yooper said, that timetable is probably a bit off.