All the recipes I find add sugar. I like a more crisp cider. I can get that without the added sweetener?
The cider itself has plenty of fructose from the apple (natural sugar) I would think but I’m not positive. Sugars are necessary for the yeast to “eat” and thereby expel the alcohol. Like I said I haven’t done cider in many years so I would recommend doing a little more research and calling a brew store if you can’t find the answer to your questions. They probably know every answer to any of your questions. I’m sure the research you need is on the net if you want to search for it.
Hope that helps a little.
You can indeed. I’ve never added any extra sugar other than enough to get it to carbonate in the bottle.
I don’t like sweet ciders.
The sweetness does not come from the sugar; the yeast will eat all of that up. Sweetness in a cider comes from the fructose in the fruit. If you’re using late season pickings which typically are far sweeter, add half again as much sugar as you normally would, as that will help dry out the cider.
Here’s a great document that walks you through much of the process: https://www.northernbrewer.com/documentation/cider.pdf
And ask while you’re there for the local recipe. Every apple region has a favorite cider.
I love a dry cider, so I’m always up getting juice the first days that the press is running - I usually bring up 4 5 gallon watertight food safe buckets to collect juice in, and generally I’ll get it at a great discount. (Even less if I promise to bring back a couple bombers full of hard cider.) I do always bring up some grunts or bombers from some of my local breweries to sweeten the deal - almost required when seeking particular apple juices.