Again, great recipe. Some experiments:
1st batch: Exact recipe, using organic cider from Whole Foods grocery. My favorite so far, though expensive. Thin, simple, and tart.
2nd batch: Subbed for cheaper juice, with a 1/2 gallon of blueberry pomegranate juice. Not bad, some friends liked it more than the first, though it was heavier, and obviously had a more complex flavor.
3rd batch: I used a combination of different commercial apple juices and ciders, trying to get the same amount of sediment and cloudiness I'd had with my first batch of organic cider on the cheap. It was okay, but I think that whatever processing they did made some of the sugar inaccessible, it was heavier, tasted more strongly of apples, and remains cloudy.
4th batch: I used cheap juice, but subbed Kolsch yeast. This seemed to take forever to reach FG, and burped a lot of sulfur (that's what Kolsch yeast does, I guess. For the first month or so in bottle, it was undrinkable, I couldn't get past the sour, sulfury smell and taste. But after that passes, it became my second favorite. Thin, clear, and crisp like the original with organic cider, retaining a hint of apple nose, and a little too tart. I may try this again with NO added acid, the Kolsch yeast sours it plenty.
5th batch: I used S-05 instead of S-04 yeast on cheap juice. This has only been in bottle about a month, and it tastes a little TOO thin, with barely any apple nose and taste at all. It's drinkable (I suppose they all have been), but it's kind of bland. I think the S-04 adds some fruity esters that enhance the apple. Maybe given a little time it will improve. It'll have plenty of time to age, since it's not all that tasty it won't be in the rotation that much.
I'm still chasing the dragon of my first batch. Maybe it wasn't so good after all, but I remember it being so light and crisp and fresh, nothing else seems to compare. I've got another batch with 4 gallons of cheap juice and a gallon of 1.050 sugar water, I'm hoping that this thins it out a bit. Failing that, I'll go back to the original recipe for the next batch.
Thanks again to the OP.