Homebrew sparkling cider questions.

So i've brewed about 6 or seven beers, last 2 being 1 gallon batches opposed to 5. I want to switch it up a little and do a cider for my girlfriend (and myself) and I'm thinking a mango cider. I done some reading over the past couple days but I'm finding hard to find information that doesn't contradict itself somewhere else.

what I plan on doing is 3 litres of apple cider and champagne yeast in the primary fermenter.

rack to the secondary and add fresh mango.

rack to the bottling bucket and then top off with fresh mango juice to reach one gallon. add priming sugar and bottle.

I then let them sit until they reach the desired carbonation level and cold crash (typically I use PET bottles plan on keeping it this way.) for this reason stove top pasteurization isn't an option.

does this make sence to everyone or am I missing something. anything you would do differently.

Sounds interesting, I would never use a champagne yeast in a cider, but the way you are doing this with the sweetening and carbing, it might be really good.

I read champagne yeast for cider during one of my my early internet searches when i got interested in making cider and I've read of other kinds being used but i thought this would be interesting.

I don't know how much sugar mango juice adds, but you will need to factor that into the carbonation.

some champagne yeasts are very cold tolerant. I had a batch of cider using ec1118 in my fridge at 35 deg and it was still fermenting

phug said:

some champagne yeasts are very cold tolerant. I had a batch of cider using ec1118 in my fridge at 35 deg and it was still fermenting

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As this would be my first time using champagne yeast I am not committed to using it.. any other stains of yeast you would reccomend for this batch.. Nottingham maybe? Sorry.. still very muuch a noob haha..


And as for the mango sugar. Would you suggest I just leave out priming sugar ? And allow for the sugars in the mango to carbonate until I think it is carbonated enough and cold crash?

I can't research it now, but I would suspect mango juice would have a good bit of sugar. It might suffice. You can calculate how much carbonation that juice will contribute if you know the percentage that is sugar.

Thanks for all the help guys. As for the bottling is everything ok there. Does it make sence to bottle and then put the bottles in the fridge to stop c02 production or am I asking for a bottle bomb?

I would grab a plastic bottle similar to the size of the bottles you are using. Fill plastic bottle and squeeze out excess air, then cap. When bottle gets hard similar to a soda bottle, carbing is done. Then cold crash.


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Good call... Thanks! I'll fill everyone in when I do it

It sounds like a great plan.

Champagne yeast is something you either like or do not like, if it is your first time, I would consider going WYEAST 3056 if you want a fruitier/sweet finish or nottingham ale (a classic). In my experience I don't care for the Champagne yeast, even some white wine yeasts tend to be a lot better (again in my opinion).