by SaazGorilla » Friday Mar 14, 2014 5:59 pm
I've done a couple of these 100% Juice ciders and I thought I'd share a couple of simple tips.
I use the champagne yeast (EC-1118). SWMBO won't allow any other variety as she prefers the 'A bit of a Tart' cider.
Sweetness, or lackthereof, is an issue. I reckon I've solved it by using Pear Juice. Pear Cider usually tastes like liquified Fruit Tingles, so I figured that using a bit in the blend would sweeten it up a bit. My batch used around 17% pear juice (which sounds like a lot I suppose) and it really did the trick. Don't get me wrong, it's nowhere near as sweet as your commercial ciders. The tartness is still there, it's just balanced by a hint of sweetness.
Ciders also benefit by ageing in the bottle. I'm not talking your regulation 2 months. I'm talking 9 -12 months. The flavour improves magnificently. I discovered this by accident when I found a cider of mine that was bottled nearly a year before. We could taste that it was the same cider that we polished off around 6 months earlier, it had just sat there and gotten better in that time! I'm now moving my cider brewing from September to May just to get that extra ageing in before summer.
I asked above about those cloudy apple juices. I can confirm that the cloudy juices make cloudy cider. You don't need all cloudy juice either. I've gotten cloudy ciders by just using 25% cloudy juice.
I'm going to try a couple of bottles of that Pink Lady Apple Juice in place of some of the Aldi juice in the next batch, along with the pear and the cloudy apple.
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