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Sour cider
i brewed a cider on June 11 and first tasted it mid-August. tasted it again this weekend and it is...not horrible, but in no way good.
it has no apple flavour or aroma. it tasted very sour. i don't know if something skunked, or if it is due to the yeast i used (a champagne yeast of some sort, it isin on eof th eother threads but i forget it at the moment).
i am wondering if anyone has brewed cider with a champagne yeast and had any experience with this. i am wondering if ti tastes so off because the yeast was too efficient, fermenting everything and leaving a tasteless, sour, alcoholic mess. it is perfectly clear and carbonated, has a great color, but is just not cider.
i am debating tossing it out, but it is so hard to do so after investing so much time in it.
any ideas?
I have made several batches (5gal) of cider over the last few years. I am currently making two batches started the same day using Champaign yeast. With each batch being obtained from a different orchard. I racked ithem yesteraday and one batch has a slite sour taste. I put it down to either the apples or the fact that I used some corn sugar in the sour one. I betting on the apples..
Yeah, I did cider with champagne yeast & it turned out really dry, with a slight apple taste. Not much. I'm going to try this year with a cider yeast or something with a lower attenuation and a fruity finish so maybe it will leave more apple flavor. Going to bottle carbonate with corn sugar & add a little lactose
We'll see. I can get bulk cider at the end of the season for about $2/gal with an O.G. around 1.050
mind if i ask why you are adding the lactose, Brewski?
i have been planning on doing a few 1-gallon experimental batches to see how the taste of the recipe i used turns out with different yeasts. just need to get my hands a one gallon carboy or some such.
do you think i could use a one gallon glass jug from the store, that used to have juice in it? since the pressures of fermentation will escape through the airlock, the glass should not get stressed...right? is my reasoning flawed here?
You can add some wine conditioner (potassium sorbate & sugar mixture). Doing so will stop fermentation and sweeten the end product perhaps getting rid of the sourness for you. Unfortunately, this will not allow for bottle conditioning, so you either have to force carbonate it or serve still cider out of the bottle.
krausenator wrote:
mind if i ask why you are adding the lactose, Brewski?
i just need to get my hands a one gallon carboy or some such.
I got a couple of 1.5 gallon buckets and a pair of 1 gallon carboys from midwest brew supply. buckets with lid are 5 bucks and 1 gallon jugs are 4 bucks. Be aware if you decide to purchase that you need a different rubber stopper for the gallon jugs. Here's the link:
http://www.midwestsupplies.com/products … SubCat=610
Why the lactose? It's non-fermentable and I would like to sweeten the completely fermented cider, and bottle carbonate using corn sugar for primer.
For experimental & other one gallon batches, I've been using 1 gal wine jugs with a #6 rubber stopper. Seems to work fine, & the price is right. 
LOL we have the same fermenters for "experiments"
My melomels last summer (still aging, only 6 more months to go)
Slightly off the topic...but what is a melomel? Back on topic, I tried my hand at my first cider recently and it too turned out a little sour, just enough to make it not taste good enough to drink. What kind of aging should go into a cider? I'll be giving it another shot soon and will be using something at the end to kill the yeast and add back some fresh juice to slightly sweeten it so I would like to have the aging all done before I killer the yeast.
i figure that my first batch went wrong when I used the whole packet of yeast on a one gallon batch. I never really thought about how I might be over pitching until I had dumped it all in. Of course once its too late you suddenly realize..."oh no!".
so an update: it has now been seven months and the cider is much improved. it is definitely a dry cider, but the sour and tartness have gone away. not too much apple flavor, but a good dry cider.
i still intend to do a few experimental batches with different yeasts to determine how the end product taste differs, but i have been too busy to get around to it.
i would say six months looks to be the magic number for ageing.
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