Still in the secondary. I guess being lazy is good for cider making, as the longer it bulk ages, the better the flavor.
I found 4 cases of champagne bottles at my LHBS for a resonable price.
Cyser on the left, and cider on the right:
The guy at the LHBS had a good idea if I make these sparkling ciders, he suggested to just use table sugar for priming, since it will add an apple ester flavor from the table sugar. Easy and benificial!
Now it is a matter of how long before bottling, and what to do with carbination levels and if I want to add some artificial sweetners. I might end up breaking these 2 up into 4 batches to see what combinations I like best.
I might add the entire batch to the bottling bucket, bottle half of it, then add some artificial sweatner to taste and then procede to bottle the rest.
I've made one cider before and have just a bit of advice for you. I think the apple ester from the table sugar isn't going to be noticeable at all. The artificial sweetener will sweeten the cider but it won't give it any apple flavours. So you'll end up with a one-dimensional sweetness as opposed to the complex apple-flavour laden sweetness you get from apple juice. (think back to JZ's Berliner Weiss episode. Do you add lactic acid or do you let a lactic fermentation create sourness? Both work, but the fermentation method makes a better product) It would taste kind of like dry cider with splenda in it. Not my idea of an ideal cider. My experience with these sweeteners was less than favourable. So what I did (I had bottled my dry sparkling cider) was blend my cider with some high quality organic apple juice in my glass right before serving. That way I could tweak it to however I wanted it and never had to worry about bottle bombs or yeast management. In fact that's all I use my Mr. Beer kit for is to make cider. Perfect size
Let us know how yours turns out. I think I'm going to make cider this weekend now. If only I can get to my lhbs (goddamn transit strike)
Let us know how yours turns out. I think I'm going to make cider this weekend now. If only I can get to my lhbs (goddamn transit strike)
<see, it's getting better.
) I think glass blending is going to suit you just fine. Now you can try splenda, apple juice, unsweetened, and any combination of those three to see what you like. Enjoy!