I've had my cider in the fermenter for about a week. Just out of curiosity, I measured the specific gravity today. It reads 1.002 before being corrected for temperature, which is a little on the warm side. This seems quite low for only a week in the fermenter. I used a recipe that called for bread yeast, and the fermentation for the first few days was quite vigorous.

Of course, I forgot to take an initial specific gravity reading.

Anyway, the cider looks good; it could use some time in a secondary for clarification, but otherwise seems to be going fine.

Any comments?

32beers has made a similar batch that there is a thread about somewhere, and found that low of a final gravity to make for a cider with too little body. Adding some malto-dextrin to it before bottling may help the mouthfeel. You got any suggestions there 32???

Here it is: http://forum.homebrewers.com/viewtopic.php?f=19&t=532&hilit=cider+low+gravity

I'll add some malto-dextrin and possibly some raisins or figs when I move to a secondary.

Thanks!

Ya my first cider was a little thin, but dont get me wrong..it wasn't bad or a deal breaker at all. Not being familiar with cider I really had no idea how it was supposed to taste and the other day I bought a single bottle of hard cider and was pleasantly surprised that I wasnt that far off after all. Some of these ciders are tasty off the shelf although some of them taste like wine coolers to me. I'm only on my second batch and I dont have any malto-dextrine on hand so I'll just go without on this batch and maybe order some up on the next big beer order.

I racked the cider to five different containers this evening. It has a very low specific gravity (~1.000) and is pretty strong alcohol-wise.

During the racking, I added maltose-dextrin, which should add "body" without adding much sweetness. In addition, each of the containers has a different dried fruit or honey to modify the body, taste, and feel (or at least that's the hope):

1) Cranberries: add some sweet-tart flavoring and some body.
2) Figs: add some sweet, earthy flavoring and some body.
3) Turkish apricots: Add some sweetness and some body.
4) Honey: Add a lot of sweet, more alcohol, and a tiny bit of body.
5) Just maltose-dextrin for a control.

I'm a little worried because the stoppers didn't fit on the 3/4 gallon jugs very well. I'll have to watch them for a few days to be sure they're not being pushed off by the re-activated yeast. I'm using basic S-shaped air locks.

For each of the dried fruits, I soaked them in sanitizing solution for a while in the hopes of killing off any wild yeasts or bacteria.

The (Flagstaff local) honey is going to bring its own wild yeast and bacteria, which is part of the plan. I left more space in they honey pot for vigorous yeast behavior in the next day or so. I should probably put the jug in a pan so the spill doesn't end up on the floor. I don't have a blow-off hose.

The control (just maltose-dextrin) is the remaining two-or-so gallons in a five gallon bucket. I'm concerned that there may be too much air and possibly the accompanying itsy-bitsy creatures.

I saved a glass for tasting. DW thinks it's too bitter and too strong. I cannot do much about the strength besides watering it down at bottling time, but I hope the secondary clarification will help mellow it out a bit. It could probably have used another week or two in the primary, but it wasn't fermenting any more, so I moved it.

I bottled the cider this evening. I think I was overly anxious and it could have waited at least another week. I don't plan on opening any bottles until November at the earliest.

Taste:
1) Just maltodextrin: Pretty nasty. I hope it calms down, but I think I could run a small car off a gallon of this.

2) Figs: Not much better than the plain. A little smoother and a bit more body.

3) Honey: Very good. I think this is going to be one of the better batches.

4) Cranberries: Very good, nice tart offset to the cider.

5) Apricots: Not too bad, but not as good as the honey or the cranberries.

I should have waited longer to move to secondary and should have waited longer to bottle. I think another week in the primary and another week in the secondary would have been fine. I hope bottle conditioning works out.

Wow- you've gone through a lot of work here with all the diff flavors. Thanks for sharing your preliminary results.

Apple juice and honey go together like coffee and cream. Try a mead with 15 pounds honey and couple gallons AJ sometime. Same recipe works using Ocean spray cranberry juice. As you say the tart goes well with the sweet. Do not be afraid to use bread yeast in mead. I know, heresy. But I have done this several times and so far it has worked well to wonderful. The three pound bags of "triple berry mix" from either sam's or costco make a wonderful beverage mixed with fifteen pounds of honey and some yeast. Gotta try figs. Always liked the flavor of figs dry or fresh.

It wasn't too much work to do this. I started with a five-gallon batch, let it ferment, then siphoned it all back into the boil pot with the maltodextrin dissolved in a quart or so of water. While that was working, I cut up the dried fruits and put some into each of the original 3/4 gallon jugs (honey in the final one), and let them sit with the sanitizing solution covering the fruit (left the honey unsanitized as I like the taste of raw honey with all its little critters better than sanitized honey). I then transferred cider into each of the jugs. All of the extra was then transferred into a clean fermenting bucket (with no additional fruits or sugars added) for the control. Later, each was bottled with a small amount of priming sugar added to each bottle. I know that's not the best method, but it was the least work... Trying to clean a bottling bucket five times in one night was just not on my agenda.

I'm still not sure about the fig taste. I think it's going to need some time still, and I maybe should have left the figs in for longer.

I really like the idea of a cranberry mead. My father also has some currants on his land, so maybe I'll bug him about getting some when they're ready. I'm still waiting on the prickly pears.

I suspect the two gallons or so of non-adulterated cider is going to be most useful as a boiling agent for uncooked brats, but I'll give it some time. I have three more batches of beer to make before the holidays take over anyway.

I had some fig wine recently at a year old it had a very nice sweet character, a bit like apricot and the tartness had faded, I suspect enough time you'll find the same on the fig version.