Pasteurizing and back sweetening

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jfrans84

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Sorry this is so long. Im very new to this. I wanted to start a new hobby. As Much as i enjoy pretty much anything put of a pry off 12 oz. bottle, Brewing to me seemed like a logical fit. So I dove hard first, getting a home brew kit and a corny keg setup and went to work. The irish red ale,that came with the set, turned out perfect but I bottled it instead of kegging it.... Dont ask. ANYWAY. Woodchuck is my favorite. I want to make some cider. I've been reading this forum and having trouble understanding why and when to pasteurize; and what is back sweetening? Can someone explain this to me? Please. Any other tips that I might need to know about kegging cider would be extremely helpful. I'm done with bottling. I have a keg might as well use it.
 
Oh boy... I'll try.
Good luck replicating cider tastes. The taste of the cider depends on the apples, so its very hard to completely replicate the taste. Even though Woodchuck is basically up the road from me and I'm pretty certain they get their apples from Champlain Orchards, I have never heard what varieties they use.
Back sweetening generally is used by those of us without a keg. We have to ferment dry and then add the sweet back into it and we have to add a sweet that is not fermentable. YOU can stop the fermentation early, stabilize the yeast before they eat all the sugar and then force carb it. Of course you have to watch the specific gravity to stop it at the right time. Because you have a keg you could also simply let it ferment dry, stabilize, add real sugar or more cider (which us non-kegged people cannot do) and force carb it.
Now I'll just add this... Try a dry cider. Its real good. Make a sweet cider too, but why not try something you have not had before.
 
sashurlow said:
Oh boy... I'll try.
Good luck replicating cider tastes. The taste of the cider depends on the apples, so its very hard to completely replicate the taste. Even though Woodchuck is basically up the road from me and I'm pretty certain they get their apples from Champlain Orchards, I have never heard what varieties they use.
Back sweetening generally is used by those of us without a keg. We have to ferment dry and then add the sweet back into it and we have to add a sweet that is not fermentable. YOU can stop the fermentation early, stabilize the yeast before they eat all the sugar and then force carb it. Of course you have to watch the specific gravity to stop it at the right time. Because you have a keg you could also simply let it ferment dry, stabilize, add real sugar or more cider (which us non-kegged people cannot do) and force carb it.
Now I'll just add this... Try a dry cider. Its real good. Make a sweet cider too, but why not try something you have not had before.
Click to expand...

+1 to dry cider. When I started last year I made my cider all sweet carbonated with pappers sticky. Since then I've added less and less back sweetening and now I enjoy a full range of cider from bone dry all the way to 150% diabetic. Bottle a six pack of bone dry cider and let it Carb all the way out. You'll be surprised how good it tastes after a few months.
 
Will do. I'll start it in the next couple of days and let u know how it turns out.
 

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