Back in April I started a second batch of the Concentrate Cider that I made in Feburary. This time I decided to not rush it and waited and additional week before bottling it. I figured that the extra week would allow more time for the yeast to fall out as well as clean up after itself. Once bottled I left them for 13 days (compared to 3 last time) before tossing them into the fridge. The caps had started to raise a little and looking back at the ginger beer it meant that they needed to go into the fridge right otherwise they could have become bottle bombs.
In addition to letting the cider sit in primary longer I also used a different yeast, Lalvin 71B. I had heard that it was good at malic fermentation and hoped that it would help with the sour taste that the last one had. It's still to early to tell as that I only had a little bit, I cracked a couple and shared them with some friends and they seemed to like it. It still seemed a little sour to me, but not as much as the first few from the last batch. With any luck when I crack the next one it will have mellowed out some more. Also it was mega carbed, the first sip that I had was all carb and bubbles. Which is a neat experience considering that cider doesn't really have any sort of head retention. I probably left them out too long to carb, but as long as they don't explode I don't mind. I'm holding onto them until the start of June when I'll be getting some friends to help me finish them.
Something that I found interesting was that even with the extra week the cider only fermented down to a FG of 1.000. I'm guessing that the concentrate is providing some sugars that are harder for the yeast to eat and end up being left behind. I also took a gravity reading of the cider after priming, it came out to be around 1.010. I believe that this is at the upper end of the dry range and would be considered a semi-sweet cider. Which, depending on what you like, could be better then the dryer commercial ciders.
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