Beer Forum

I have a hard cider from a kit in the carboy right now. It is ready for bottling but the ABV is high (9.1%) because I used a champagne yeast. The alcohol content is a little high for my taste.....I was looking for something like Strong Bow.
My question is can I add this brew to a new batch that I will start this week or should I wait to blend both batches at bottling time?

I would wait until your other batch is done fermenting to blend, if you are in fact going to blend the two. I would just be worried about the health of the yeast in a partially alcoholic, partially fresh wort environment if you were to mix unfermented cider with fermented cider. I haven't heard anything specific about how that would affect the flavor, but the yeast might have a little bit of a hard time trying to replicate and strengthen their cell walls, which could turn into off flavors.
Your cider is probably pretty good at that 9% ABV, nice and dry. I would go a head and bottle/keg that, and then make your next batch less strong. I am sure people would love to try that beast of a cider!
Not sure if I helped at all, but all the best!

It does make sense to not add the old batch to the new batch...I was just making sure.

Another option would be to backsweeten the stron cider until you get a flavor profile you like. Personally, I'll be adding some sugar free raspberry syrup (Torani coffee syrup) to a cider that went too dry.

Frozen concentrated cider would be another option...

thanks for the help. i think I will add some concentrate to the brew to give it some added flavour. Next time I wil just use the yeast that came with the cider kit

I eneded up adding 2gal of a vanilla mead that was frementing at the same time to the hard cider. The original test sample was very nice. It has now been in the secondary for a week and will be ready to bottle very soon.

Now down to half a keg and the cider is GREAT! I have been messing around with a homemade counter pressure filler, so the brew well soon be in bottles.