First Cider

Other Fermentables
1

About a month ago, I decided to try making a cider.

I used fairly cheap, store bought, pasteurized apple juice from concentrate with no additional fruit, sugar, etc. because I wanted to see what the baseline would be.  All I added was yeast nutrient and some S-04 slurry.

Anyway, I kegged it last night, and the hydrometer sample tasted surprisingly good.  There was more apple flavor than I was expecting, and it had a nice tartness.

I’m going to carb it up and then evaluate the desirability of back sweetening.  The FG was 1.004.

2

Sounds good !  I’ve made a lot of good cider with juice like that. I usually backsweeten and add a little malic acid, but it all depends on what you’re after. It’ll be good.

3

I always use juice and Nottingham for my ciders as a base, then backsweeten to whatever style I want (apple pie, fireball, black cherry, etc).

Problem is that it’s so easy I usually have way more than I can drink or my kegerator can hold. :wink:

4

ive liked my ciders with s-04 also.