The demise of last year's cider

Ok, so I got really lazy after starting my Apple Cider last year.  I bottled it last month after sitting almost 9 months in the secondary fermenter.  I failed to save it from over-fermenting (which might be a problem unique to cider).  I also left it sitting for far too long on the trub formed in the secondary fermenter.  The yeast was so long dead, that I couldn't get any bottle conditioning by adding extra sugar at bottling time.  As you can probably guess, it tastes terrible.

It doesn't taste like vinegar or anything.  But it's flat, very heavy on the alcohol content, and not even remotely sweet.  I'd say it's more like a very dry apple wine.

I decided to bottle the cider into small test batches and try different sugars for the bottle conditioning.  Since the yeast is completely dead and there's no bottle conditioning happening, that was probably a waste of time.  Two of the sugars I used weren't going to ferment anyway.  One being Splenda, the other being Truvia (stevia). 

I think next time around I'm going to solve the over-fermentation problem by using a weaker yeast.  The champagne yeast, while great in many situations, seems to eat through all of the available sugars, and tolerate a huge amount of alcohol content.  What I actually need is for the yeast to stop fermenting, or die off at the 4% to 5% mark, leaving the extra sugars in solution to sweeten the cider. However, would the yeast start to stress as they reach their tolerance and give off a lot of nasty tasting tannins or phenols?  Anyone know of a common yeast with a low alcohol tolerance?  I could only find "Wyeast 3191-PC Berliner-Weisse Blend" which is from Wyeast's private collection and has very limited availability.  It also appears to be a "lambic" yeast which kind of frightens me, since I'm not a fan of wild yeast.


The only other way I can think of, is to constantly monitor the fermentation process so you can stop it at the 4%-5% range.  Is there a way to get these results without becoming an SG measuring fanatic?  I personally detest having to measure the SG regularly.  It takes a lot of time for one measurement, and each test makes the brew more prone to infection.  If I could test the SG without popping the lid off of the fermenter each time, it would be a different story. 

Suggestions anyone?  Easy SG testing?  Good low tolerance yeast?  Anyone think the Cider might be save-able?