I did my first cider batch a week ago now. Today I transferred it into a secondary and plan on leaving there for 2 months before I bottle. This was just an experiment with store bough ingredients. I sampled it today and it was nowhere near what I expected. I'm hoping some of the more experienced cider makers can lend their opinion.
Ingredients
5 liters fresh apple juice (Walshes)
250 mls pure maple syrup
1 cup strong tea infusion (fruit and spice)
8g yeast nutrient
1 packet cider yeast
Org gravity 1060
Final gravity 1001
The fermentation happened as expected and it looks as I expected however it tastes completely different. It is very dry and very tart (almost lemony). There is very little body to it either. I was aware from reading various posts that the sugars would ferment out and I would have a dry cider but is the extreme tartness normal?
I would like to bottle condition this and ideally have it fizzy. Is there any way I can back sweeten it and still have it fizzy
You can use an artificial sweetener like splenda to back sweeten it.
is Splenda non fermentable. If I mix that with some fermentable sugar at bottling, will the Splenda remain as a residual sweetness, while allowing the other sugar to ferment and carbonate the cider?
Yep the splenda will remain. Be very careful with it though. Splenda is super sweet and it's very easy to over do it.
To get rid of the tartness (green apple flavour) try to do a malic acid fermentation. It ferments the malic acid into a softer lactic acid