How to improve my cider?

[minesamojito]

Hi there,
I made 40l of cider last year, and it's been very dry and sharp, has mellowed a bit over the summer though
I used a 60(eaters)/40(cookers) mix as couldn't lay my hands on any cider apples, and carried out the fermentation for a couple of weeks from 1055OG down to 1000OG and bottled up with a teaspoon of sugar to make sparkling
everything was sterilised, I used campdens in the juice before adding cider yeast
How can i go about getting a better cider, was aiming for a chamagne/fizzy medium/dry cider, but think i left it to go too dry, when should i bottle it up this time?
cheers
Marcus

[MKG]

... couldn't lay my hands on any cider apples

I'm no great cider maker, but I strongly suspect you may have answered your own question right there. It's similar, I assume, to the debate on home-made wine. People often wonder why most home plonk doesn't taste like commercial wine. It's nothing to do with technique - it's simply that in the main, it ain't made from sun-soaked grapes of the right variety.

I make my own wine every year from apples - not cider apples, I hasten to add, although they are from my own orchard. It's very different every year, and I put that down to my apples being sensitive to that year's growing conditions. In the south-west - traditional cider country - the climate has always been a bit kinder, but even there the canny population knew what made the best cider, and that's cider apples.

Mike

[minesamojito]

Thank you, I'd better plant a couple of cider apple trees then this winter
Appreciate the advice, do you get good results with your wine?
cheers
Marcus

[MKG]

Oh, the results are usually good - but that's a bit subjective. I expect that wine to taste appley rather than grapey - and it does. But I don't mind that at all. In fact, making wines that remind you of the time you picked whatever fruit you're using (usually by tasting of that fruit) is what it's all about as far as I'm concerned.

The alcohol content is, of course, merely a serendipitous by-product (LIAR!!!!)

Mike

[phil55494]

The thing cider apples add to the mix is tannins, but cider apples aren't needed to make a drinkable cider. The cider made in norfolk, suffolk etc isn't usually made with cider apples.
As for making it sweeter, if you can you could stop the fermentation earlier, bed sugar solution or apple juice when bottling (only if the fermentation is totally finished) or when drinking to sweeten it up.
Hopefully we'll get some juice from the cider apple tree we've planted this year.