Cider time

After a long break I have decided to have another crack at an Apple Cider. My first and only previous Cider was done a few years back; using bottled apple and pear juice and a wine yeast, EC-1118. This batch finished very dry, an FG of 0.0098, with no body and a generally unpleasant tartness.

So after reading many discussions and threads about cider and how to keep some sweetness I have decided to go ahead with bottled juice and an ale yeast, US-05. This is the most widely used beer yeast in the world and when fermented at the lower end of its ideal fermentation range 15-22c, it produces a clean finish with little to no esters or yeast flavours, just what is needed in a cider. It also attenuates to about 75-78%, so should leave a reasonable amount of unfermented sugars in the finished cider.

So when shopping recently and came across quality juice at half price, it was time to go ahead with my second batch of 'hard cider'. So 8 litres of juice, mostly apple with a little pear and raspberry for some interest, 1pack of yeast and into the fridge to ferment at 16c for a few weeks. Hopefully this one will be more drinkable than my first batch.