Apple cider brewing

Richd

Every year I make cider from my dads apple trees, one cooking and one eating apple tree which we mix apples together. It always turns out to be more of an apple wine which doesn’t taste very nice I don’t know what I’m doing wrong as I’ve researched the process and sterilise everything ect but still comes out not very nice. Anyone with any ideas as it’s getting to the stage now where I’m about to give up. Thanks everyone

RevA

What do you mean by not nice?
Is it still or does it have bubbles? Is it sweetened?
I make two types of sparkling (bubbly) cider. Semi sweet and off dry. Both are sweetened with artificial sweetener and bottled conditioned - they come out to a taste that I like.
Keep in mind eating and cooking apples are generally sweet and a lot of the flavour is in the sweetness, when there is no sweetness it tastes different. Which is why tart fruit makes a decent cider - more flavour and not as necessary to back sweeten

Chalkyt

I make most of my cider from eating/cooking apples because those are the trees that I have (Red Delicious, Granny Smith, Cox's Orange Pippin, etc).
Have you tasted the cider as it ferments? Sweet cider can be as high as SG1.015 - 1.020 whereas an Off-Dry cider can be something like 1.005 to 1.008 or any other SG that takes your fancy between sweet and dry. For a nice quaffing cider I generally aim for a finished SG of around 1.008 which means that I bottle at 1.012 and pasteurise at 1.008 which is 20 g/L of sugar (about the same as a teaspoon of sugar in a cup of coffee). Alternatively I can let the cider fully ferment then add sweetness to the appropriate level by adding back in sugar, AJC or even just more juice.
If you like where the cider is at during fermentation, you can hold it there by pasteurising to stop any further fermentation. Stopping can be done by chemical means or heat pasteurisation (see Pappers post at the top of the forum).
Adding a small amount of malic acid can improve the "bite" of the cider if it is a bit flat and ordinary. Carbonation improves the mouthfeel, and this can be achieved by kegging or bottling at a few gravity points above your target sweetness then heat pasteurising. There is plenty of information on the forum about these approaches. You might like to add sugar to your cider to see if it helps with the taste that you want, then Google Vinolab to find their calculator and determine the SG (i.e. sugar level) that you can pasteurise at to get that taste .

madscientist451

Not all apples make good cider. That blend of the two varieties you have just isn't working for you.
You're in the UK? Well if you hunt around you should be able to find some decent cider apples to add to your blend. Or just look around the neighborhood for other apple trees and ask if you can clean them up. You can be scientific about it or just try to chuck in as many varieties as you can find. Make a couple of different batches and then taste them and do some blending. Early, Mid-Season and late varieties all have different flavor notes.
I've been making cider for 20+ seasons and these days I only use specific apples that are hard to get and somewhat expensive, (I'm in the USA) and usually I only make single variety ciders.
But before I figured that out I use to make a 10 variety cider that came out pretty good.
I don't add anything except the yeast, and then Campden at racking.
Are you adding sugar to the cider?

hawkwing

What is your process? Recipe? I have made cider from different kinds of apples successfully. I can’t see your source of apples being the problem.
I do wonder why you keep making it if you don’t like it lol?