Will it carb?

I bottled up 3 1-gallon batches of cider that I made with Nottingham yeast, fermented in the range of 55F-68F for about 14 days. OG's were between 1.062-1.068.

I was planning on backsweetening a little with concentrate for 2, and honey for 1... but they tasted pretty good to me, so I left them untouched. They all had a FG of 1.012-1.015. I bottled them into 22oz bottles, and put them aside. I didn't even think that not adding ANY sweetener might effect the carbonation. I plan on pasteurizing these on the 6th day after bottling, so that I can bring them to a friend's place when I visit. What are the chances that I'll have any carbonation? There are still sugars in there, but I thought fermentation was pretty much done.

New guy here... bear with me.

You wont get much carbonation as the yeast are probably sleeping with the alcohol levels being so high already in there.

I doubt fermentation was done. I would've expected your gravity to go much lower than that. It's only about 7% ABV, so the yeast should still be working. Unless your fermentation stuck for some reason, I think it will carb just fine. You could easily have bottle bombs with this, so pasteurization is a good idea.

I haven't done in bottle pasteurization, so I'm no expert, but I'm not sure about pasteurizing after 6 days. How do you know it will be carbed? How do you know it won't be overcarbed? I'd be tempted to open a bottle every day or two to check the carbonation level. You can recap them after testing. Worst case scenario, the test bottles may end up with a lower level of carbonation due to opening, but I think it's worth it.

Bottling after 14 days is pretty quick. I'd expect cloudy cider and/or a layer of sediment in the bottles.

GinKings said:

I haven't done in bottle pasteurization, so I'm no expert, but I'm not sure about pasteurizing after 6 days. How do you know it will be carbed? How do you know it won't be overcarbed?

Click to expand...

Right, I probably don't know, but I want to bring some examples of this cider on a trip, so I'm willing to risk it being slightly undercarbed. I was just kind of curious if people thought I would get anything on my short timetable. Next tile will be different.

GinKings said:

Bottling after 14 days is pretty quick. I'd expect cloudy cider and/or a layer of sediment in the bottles.

Click to expand...

Also right, I am aware that it was fairly quick. Cloudiness isn't much of a concern to me, and I think that the sediment level isn't too bad.