Bottling after 2 days of fermentation

This is my second cider the first one was to dry. My plan is to bottle and pasteurize after the correct co2 levels are reached.

My ciders is on the second day of primary fermentation and the Gravity is 1.020 so I cold crashed and want to bottle tomorrow with 4.5 TBS of cane sugar then check it every 24 hours to see when the co2 is right and pasteurize.

Is my plan ok? why does everyone seem to let it finish fermentation and then backsweeten?

Also how will I know when the co2 level is reached I dont want to drink 4 of them before I know I would like to reseal them and just have the couple bottles less carbed

It's a bit easier to control when you let it finish first. Also, it's not in the middle of active (speedy) fermentation when you back sweeten if you let it finish first.

If it tastes fine to your taste now then your plan should be fine, but the carbing will likely happen pretty fast. You'll have to be ready to test and pasteurize fairly soon after.

The only way you'll really know if you've got enough or not too much carbonation is to test. Not many ways around that. You can do a plastic bottle-firmess test but that always seems a bit hit or miss to me.

awesome thanks for the input! How often do you suggest checking for carb 12 hours or like 2 days?

Anyone else?

2 day fermentation? thats ether a very weak cider or a high temp fermentation. what was your OG, whats the temp?

temp is ambient so 75-80 I dont have a basement. og was 1.065. It was very fast as all my cider/beers are.

safale s-04 was used

wow, my current cider started with an OG of 1.069 and took 32 days to get down to 1.020 with S-04. how do your ciders turn out with that high temp fast fermentation?

kamkamdac said:

wow, my current cider started with an OG of 1.069 and took 32 days to get down to 1.020 with S-04. how do your ciders turn out with that high temp fast fermentation?

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You gotta turn your fermentation dial to 10. Everybody knows that.

Mran556 said:

temp is ambient so 75-80 I dont have a basement. og was 1.065. It was very fast as all my cider/beers are.

safale s-04 was used

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Did you move to Miami? I wouldn't expect the ambient temp to be 75-80 in Milwaukee in April.

Fermenting at that temp can cause problems.

Bottling after 2 days, your yeast can't possibly be cleared. I would think this would have a very yeasty taste.

roadymi said:

Bottling after 2 days, your yeast can't possibly be cleared. I would think this would have a very yeasty taste.

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Funnily enough, our latest cider endeavor was similar to that of the OP. After bottling our first batch, we added half a bag of Ocean Spray cranberries pureed in the blender and another gallon of apple cider to the carboy, using the same yeast used in the initial batch (Nottingham). First batch had taken about a week and a half to ferment; he second batch had taken a couple of days. I assumed it was because the yeast had been active prior to adding the ingredients for the second batch.