On The Rocks Apple Cider

[irish_goat]

Threw this kit on last weekend. I was surprised at how liquid the can contents were, a far cry from the gloopy treacle mess you normally end up.  Instructions said to add 1.3KG of sugar but I only had 1KG so I used 2700ml of apple juice as well, which has 256g of sugar. Reading online afterwards  a lot of people recommended only topping it up to 20 litres but I'd already added 23 litres.



Came out a bit darker than I was expecting as well.



The instructions say to keep it in the fermenter for just a week, transfer to the bottling bucket with the sweetener sachet added and bottle. Is there any advantage keeping it the fermenter a little longer?

[irish_goat]

2 years to the day and we had the second last bottle at the Maiden Brewers tasting last night. Julio commented that it tastes kind of like Orchard Thieves and reckoned his missus would like it. I think that's a fair review of the kit. I can't say I would recommend it myself, especially given how long it needed to mature.

No point making this when you could just buy Orchard Thieves...

[cruiscinlan]

How long did it take to come good?

[irish_goat]

Maybe a year. Without the sweetner it might be a lot better. Hard to tell.

[brendy_éire]

Maybe a year. Without the sweetner it might be a lot better. Hard to tell.

I'd say it would still have tasted a bit artificial, but would have been OK. Far too much saccharine-like sweetness in it, even if you didn't use all the sweetener.
Was it even much cheaper than just buying apple juice?

[irish_goat]

It's £17.50 a can at the minute so not really cheaper. Only advantage is you're guaranteed to get cider that won't need backsweetened.