BadgerBrigade

Recipes 

I am about to do my second and third cider ever. I have an apple cider going and a pear cider going.....

I'm going to backsweeten and I am curious what YOU like to use as sweeteners....

So, what are your favorite sweeteners for ciders?

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Bottled: Pippin Cider & Hopped Cider
Bottled : Apple/Mapple
Bottled: Pear & Sweet Pear
Bottled: Apple Cedar Cherry
On Deck: Graff and a Dry Hopped Cider

VaBrewer

Recipes 

I keg mine, I take 1 cup of water, 1/2 Cup Splenda, 1/2 Cup clover honey and simmer. I take 2 cans of frozen apple juice concentrate, dump them into the sanitized keg, pour the still hot mixture in, swirl to mix, then rack the cider in. I immediately chill my cider and force carb.

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Kegged: Feast of Fools (Braggot), Drunken Punkin Dunkel, Raspberry Wheat, Chocolate Cherry Porter, Oktoberfestive ale, Apfelwien, Rochefort 8 Clone, Centennial Blonde, La Fin Du Pistoles, Surly Furious, Ryed On Saison, Celebrationizator Dopplebock, Ryebock, Lemon-Lime Hefe, Chamomile Honey Wheat, Blue Ridge Moon Wit, Patersbier,

Primary: Bourbon Vanilla Imperial Porter, Cherry Brett Saison, Imperial Irish Red

Secondary: Gulden Draak, Peaches & Cream Belgian Tripel

overpunch

Recipes 

My favorite sweeteners for cider are: frozen apple juice concentrate and table sugar. The concentrate give a little more flavor and sweetness and the sugar is cheap!

Of course, you'll want to stabilize it to prevent any further fermentation.

Soilworker

Recipes 

Apple juice concentrate here as well. I would also think a nice brown sugar like a light\dark Muscovado sugar would work well as it would add some good flavors.

I've never tried any of those artificial sweeteners\non-fermentable sugars but I hate those in every other product I find them so I definitely recommend using a sweetener you like as is. For me its concentrate since it increases the apple taste (fermentation removes a lot of it) and makes it deliciously sweet. BTW stove top pasteurizing is stupid easy for stabilizing...check out the sticky

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Primary: White House Honey Ale (Extract), Caribou Slobber Brown Ale (Extract)

Secondary: None

Carbonating: None

On Deck: Abbey Singel\Patersbier, English Session Ale\Bitter

Last Updated: 5/21/2013

WilliamSlayer

Recipes 

I use more cider, for the same reasons that others seem to use concentrate. It increases the cider flavor and adds sweetness/tartness/complexity.

You do need to factor in the fact that you will be reducing ABV a bit when using my method. I calculate this when creating the batch (I.e. create a 10% batch when shooting for 8% final product)

aceparadis

Recipes 

I use honey

Pappers_

Recipes 

more apple juice

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http://www.singingboysbrewing.com

BadgerBrigade

Recipes 

If you're adding more sugar isn't there some residual yeast there to eat it and why would your alcohol volume go down?

__________________
Bottled: Pippin Cider & Hopped Cider
Bottled : Apple/Mapple
Bottled: Pear & Sweet Pear
Bottled: Apple Cedar Cherry
On Deck: Graff and a Dry Hopped Cider

Hedo-Rick

Recipes 

Pappers,

I'm fermenting my cider dry, want to back sweeten with raw cider, bottle condition and pasteurize per your thread. But I'm a little unsure about how much to back sweeten to (to what gravity?) to get a light sparkle from bottle conditioning and hopefully end up with a final gravity (in the bottle) around 1.010. I was thinking of back sweetening to 1.013-1.014. What do you think?

Any thoughts you have would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

amandabab

Recipes 

if you don't stabilize or pasturize, yes there is some yeast left.

your ABV goes down when you back sweeten because your total alcohol remains the same and your batch size goes up.