starting OG of different apple juices

I am only on my second batch but this second fresh apple cider I bought only had an OG of 1.044. For my first batch the OG was closer to 1.052. I am fairly confident in my refractometers accuracy and my ability to read it.

After having to add so much sugar I am feeling like I bought the wrong juice. Should I have taken a OG reading before buying 5 gallons worth or will the weaker stuff + sugar taste the same? I am hoping there isn't some unscrupulous juicer our there adding water to the product in order to sell more.

I would imagine different types of apples give different amounts of sugar and am curious what some of the starting OGs that people see in store bought, home pressed or from the mill juices.

Cheers!

With or without the sugar you should be fine. Different brands may have different sugar levels, and even apples from the same tree will have different sugar levels at different times in the growing season. 1.045 is fine in my experience without sugar.


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You could convert the sugar content in grams on the back of the apple juice container to gravity points if you are concerned about alcohol content.

A 1.052 cider as-is and a 1.044 cider with sugar added to bump it to 1.052 are NOT equal. There are several factors that would be different, the least of which would be how much of that sugar content comes from the fruit and how much of it is literally processed sugar. In general terms, the cider is balanced the way it is, and you risk bumping it out of balance just by adding simple sugar to the hard cider, because that simple sugar in the cider is going to be converted almost directly to alcohol, while sucrose naturally occurs in apples, and is a disaccharide that is a slightly more complex sugar that the yeast break down more slowly in an enzymatic process.

Anyway, the point of all that gibberish is that some 1.052s are different than other 1.052s, and you can't just add simple sugars to ge the same thing. Stick with the juice as-is, and don't add the sugar.

phug said:

With or without the sugar you should be fine. Different brands may have different sugar levels, and even apples from the same tree will have different sugar levels at different times in the growing season. 1.045 is fine in my experience without sugar.


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I am not worried about a problem that may happen just learning about the ingredients that are available to me and the variation that occurs with them.

The thing that throws me off the most is that they both show the same nutritional information. It would be nice if you could use the calories listed as an approximate for how much sugar is in the product...what it looks like is happening is that the two unfiltered apple juices i bought both said 120cal although there were pretty different.

microbiology said:

I am not worried about a problem that may happen just learning about the ingredients that are available to me and the variation that occurs with them.



The thing that throws me off the most is that they both show the same nutritional information. It would be nice if you could use the calories listed as an approximate for how much sugar is in the product...what it looks like is happening is that the two unfiltered apple juices i bought both said 120cal although there were pretty different.

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Some nutritional fact trickery is sometimes found in the serving size. We're they both 120 cal for 250 ml of juice? We're both samples as the same temp when hydro'd and was that the calibrated temp of your hydrometer? Or maybe yeah you got a batch that didn't match the nutritional facts and could complain to the packager. I assume that the sugars were evenly distributed in your juice and that it didn't stratidy


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Calories are not a direct correlation to sugar content. Fat and protein contributes to calories. Doesn't the nutritional information list carbohydrates, and individually, sugar content? I thought that was required in packaged food products in the US.

TopherM said:

Calories are not a direct correlation to sugar content. Fat and protein contributes to calories. Doesn't the nutritional information list carbohydrates, and individually, sugar content? I thought that was required in packaged food products in the US.

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There are 0 grams of fat and protein listed on the nutritional information. I thought this was obvious. There are 30 grams of sugar per serving and therefore 120 calories per serving.

also per your other email - table sugar is sucrose. Apples contain sucrose as well as other sugars and it is a disaccharide. But I didn't come here to argue these points just was wondering what other people found the starting OGs of the juices they used.

microbiology said:

I would imagine different types of apples give different amounts of sugar and am curious what some of the starting OGs that people see in store bought, home pressed or from the mill juices.

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With Motts/Tree Top I find OG always seems to be right around 1.050. I imagine store-bought name brand juice/cider tends to have pretty consistent OGs, since they're blending lots of juices anyway and have an incentive to keep the product close to what's shown on the label (unlike a farm stand, someone might actually test the Motts from time to time).

[EDIT: I am assuming you bought your unfiltered juice from a farm stand or the like -- it would seem surprising for a major brand to divert widely from the listed nutritional info, but I guess you never know!]

Since different varieties of apples will contain produce different amounts of sugar /water and the same varieties will contain different amounts of sugar and water depending on the time of picking and their ripeness and the amount of rain that fell during the growing season then I suspect the attributed weight of the sugar content is a standard typical measure (for MOST intents and purposes) and not an actual measure of the contents of the containers you bought specifically because you assumed the sugar content was literally as listed on the label. In other words, 30 g of sugar , not 10 but it could be or 27 or 33 g

My sense is that the nutritional values published are there for health reasons (those watching their weight, and those who may suffer from diabetes, those helping to provide "good nutrition" to others, and those who need or must avoid certain substances). My sense is that the nutritional labels can be used by wine makers and the like as reasonable approximations but not as accurate measures to the third decimal place.

I suspect that the difference between 1.05X and 1.04X may be significantly smaller than the accuracy of a glass hydrometer that uses a paper scale fixed to the inside of the glass tube - if you know what I mean...and it could be that if the container was standing for any length of time some (or much) of the sugars may have migrated towards the bottom

bernardsmith said:

I suspect that the difference between 1.05X and 1.04X may be significantly smaller than the accuracy of a glass hydrometer that uses a paper scale fixed to the inside of the glass tube - if you know what I mean...and it could be that if the container was standing for any length of time some (or much) of the sugars may have migrated towards the bottom

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I am using a refractometer and its pretty easy to read. I agree with your points on the inaccuracy of nutrition labels...upon further reading it seems like by law labels can vary from the correct number by 20%. So something with 30 grams of sugar in it could have 36g or 24g.

microbiology said:

I am using a refractometer and its pretty easy to read. I agree with your points on the inaccuracy of nutrition labels...upon further reading it seems like by law labels can vary from the correct number by 20%. So something with 30 grams of sugar in it could have 36g or 24g.

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OK... but a refractometer like ANY measuring tool has its own inherent tolerances (plus or minus X) and the material to be measured may have some impact on the reliability and accuracy of the results. Might the color of the apple juice have any impact on the refraction of light? Might the size of the fruit particulates in the juice have any effect? And I am ignoring the role of the user in reading the results.

bernardsmith said:

OK... but a refractometer like ANY measuring tool has its own inherent tolerances (plus or minus X) and the material to be measured may have some impact on the reliability and accuracy of the results. Might the color of the apple juice have any impact on the refraction of light? Might the size of the fruit particulates in the juice have any effect? And I am ignoring the role of the user in reading the results.

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Sure neither a refractometer nor a hydrometer are perfect - i just personally think you are less likely to error reading a refractometer. I don't believe the color of a solution has any effect a refractometry - color is absorption we are looking at refracted light. I don't believe fruit particles have any effect on bending light either - they scatter light but that light does not contribute greatly to the amount of light that makes it through the prism even in the most extreme cases. They may lead to some broadening of the refraction line in extreme cases but that would be visible to the viewer. Industry uses refractometers to measure the sugar content of tomato paste! Maybe we could start a thread on refractometry

I keep a house cider on tap. Have an Amazon subscribe and save order to deliver 8 gallons of Mott's to my house monthly (kid/wife go through ~3/month, cider with other 5). Take OG every batch after pouring into fermenter (so it is somewhat mixed), regularly get 1.050, never been off by more than a point, YMMV but mine has not.

I did make EdWort's Apfelwein once with Wal-Mart store brand. Didn't take a reading of just the juice, but after adding 2lbs of Dextrose I was only at 1.056, obviously there is a big difference between juice brands (at least cheapo store brands).

I see a pattern here. This guy asks for help with his question, then tells everyone that tries to help that they are wrong.

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