You should try a dedicated cider yeast rather than US-05. I kept being unhappy with the store juice ciders I tried to make, they always came out kind of thin and bland. Turns out cider specific yeast strains were what I was missing and the difference was dramatic. SafCider AB-1 is my favorite.
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No, I'll see you in two weeks. Do you have a gravity reader? Curious what the ABV is on this technique
Give us some details please. What was your method?
Wait for juice to go on sale. Make sure it has no preservatives. Empty into sanitized bucket. Add yeast and nutrient. Stir. Wait.
Finding a juice that doesn't have preservatives sounds like quite a challenge
It's easier than you are probably thinking, most that are labeled as 100% juice are preservative free. Look in the juice aisle next time and you'll see it's many or perhaps even most of them if they're actually sold as juice and not some kind of flavored soft drink. The ingredients and label will make it pretty clear, if it doesn't have any ingredients listed other than juice and maybe sometimes water you should be good to go.
In my experience you also need to do some extra things to get good cider though. You need to use cider-specific yeast and add yeast nutrient, and it needs to ferment cool. Stabilizing the end product (which will usually be bone dry) so you can add a bit of sugar (I recommend dark) also makes for a better, more apple-y flavor. All that said, you can make something drinkable even with a lot less care than that. Cider is fairly forgiving.
I've had trouble with the preservatives in bottled juice killing my yeast. How do you avoid that?
There are no preservatives in this brand. Honestly it's very rare for me to find them in the 100% juice. I see them in the soda or fake juices (sunny d type).
I'm not OP but the best way to deal with things like sulfite or benzoate in juice is to oxygenate the heck out of the juice. Either with an oxygen set up or just stirring a LOT of air into it before you pitch your yeast and then keep on stirring the heck out of it when you have a chance for the first few days of fermentation.
Oxygen will help neutralize the preservatives and the yeast also use it to reproduce.
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