baddagger

Recipes 

ok so i need two things to kill off the yeast? what do they both do? and just wondering also i rember reading something that adds a bit of tartness to the cider what woudl that be?

DMartin

Recipes 

Mermaid, I bottle all my cider with about 1lb of lactose per 5 gal. It gives it just enough sweetness to overcome that clingy dry taste. Lactose also adds a thicker, creamy feel when you drink it so I would add a max of 4 to 4.5 oz per gal. or you'll overcome it.

Brewkowski

Recipes 

So what would happen if you were to naturally carbonate and keg a cider, then after it's got a good carbonation level to it, you release the pressure and pour in some apple juice concentrate that has been treated with sorbate then add gas to repressurize?

rycov

Recipes 

you can age the keg over winter before you add the sweetener, then add the sweetener (more juice sugar w/e). i backsweetended my graff with apple juice. it was in the keg for close to a month with no additional fermentation.

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DMartin

Recipes 

If you're gonna keg, why not kill the yeast and force carb it? Then you can sweeten all you want.

Honestly, most of the people with back sweetening issues are those of us who haven't upgraded to kegs yet

Mermaid

Recipes 

Something else to consider about killing the yeast with sulfites is, some folks have allergies to them, so if you go that route and tap your keg for friends, etc. you might want to let folks know that the cider contains sulfites.

(most commercial wine these days use sulfites so it's not a big deal for most folks)

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The sands of time were eroded by the river of constant change.

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Primary: Empty
Secondary: Empty!
an empty fermenter is a sad fermenter
Bottled: Nut brown ale, Bink blond clone (she's a bitter Belgian!) Belgian Wit, several other tasty beers that have since been consumed!
On deck: TBD

BOBrob

Recipes 

Lactose is milk sugar and does work well. But some of your friends may have allergies to it.I have added a splash of Sprite or 7-up to sweeten and it gives a slight carbing to it when served; this works well as I can serve both sparking and dry from the same bottle. Cheers

emjay

Recipes 

Just one problem...

Lactose may be a sugar, but it's not very sweet at all. Brewers who know what they're doing use it more for body and mouthfeel rather than sweetness.

Yes, it's slightly sweet. But to achieve any significant amount of sweetness, you're going to end up with a pretty chewy cider, which just isn't right.

You can pasteurize. Or if you have a kegging system, stabilize or filter. I just prefer to use a sweetener (though I prefer my cinders dry, so I typically don't do anything). I use Splenda, but xylitol, Ace-K, and even aspartame are viable choices.

However, I'll be getting a keg system soon, and IMO, the best method with kegs is just to filter the yeast out, and use real sugar.

KWKSLVR

Recipes 

As mentioned, Lactose isn't a really a sweetener. Also, a "dry" cider doesn't automatically mean "non-sweet" cider. All a dry cider is, is a cider that has had ALL of the natural sugar fermented out. Dry is in the finish, not the flavor profile. I've had many sweet ciders that have a dry finish.

Anyway, that said, I think it depends on how sweet you want it. If something is full of apple flavor, I personally don't think it needs THAT much sweet to it. I don't find Woodchuck to be all that sweet (or dry in the finish for that matter). I find something like this to be MUCH drier have a LOT more complex apple flavor and as sweet as Woodchuck. Woodchuck tastes like lightly carbonated apple flavored beer to me more than "hard cider". I really think that I could take Miller Light, let it go a little flat, add apple juice and get Woodchuck.

NOT that there's ANYTHING wrong with that, people should drink what they like, but my palliate finds Hard Cider and Woodchuck to be mutually exclusive.

KWKSLVR

Recipes 

Double Post!