Ok--I officially need some recipe advice

[mm1473]

Hello Cider Gurus--

So, last year I did a lot of cider sampling to find out if I even liked hard cider. Turn out that I liked a sweeter cider rather than the dry variety. I have tried to cruise through the cider recipe section with no success--it is hard to pick out a recipe with limited reviews. Could one of you please point me in the right direction of a good sweet cider recipe--not a graff, I tried that and I am not a fan. I am just not really adept at picking a proper recipe. I cant keg yet but it seems like most of the ciders I tried were not carbonated anyway. I would like it to be done by fall (late oct or nov) because there is no better time to drink a hard cider than the fall. Anyway--thanks in advance for your help. I appreciate it. Have a good night.

 

[RPowell]

If you don't mind fermenting dry and backsweetening, almost any recipe will probably work. Buy your juice (no preservatives!!), toss in your yeast, and go. When it's done fermenting, you backsweeten/flavor to taste -perhaps after a stint in secondary if you've a mind. I hit mine with some frozen apple juice concentrate (no preservatives!!), maybe a bit more unfermented apple juice and sugar. Literally, take a cup of "sugar" (cane, corn, brown, whatever) and a cup of water. Heat the water, dissolve the sugar, let it cool. Start with a 1/4 can of frozen (but thawed) concentrate, then taste it. If it's got enough apple flavor, add sugar till it is sweet enough, if not, more concentrate. If the alcohol is too much, add regular juice. once you have a flavor you like, either treat with campden tablets to bottle a still cider, or read the stove top pastuerizing thread stickied at the top for how to bottle carb.

(note, i've only done gallon batches, so all those amounts above are for 1 gallon batches)

my first recipe was:
1 gallon juice
1 pgk ec-1118 yeast
1 cup of sugar (or 1 lb, 1 1/3 cups, of brown sugar - I did a batch of each)

what i found was, that extra sugar boosted my abv into rocket fuel ranges, so when i backsweetened, I cut it back with a bunch of regular apple juice, then bottle carbed per the stickied thread (Stove Top Pasteurization).

 

[mm1473]

Thanks for the advice--had a good sale on Apple juice at Sam's so it is officially in the fermenter--we will see how it goes--thanks again.


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