Is a FG of 1.020 too high?

I'll keep this short...

I made a cider:
5 gallons of Tree Top Apple Juice
1lb of Brown sugar
0.5lb of Corn Sugar
S-04 Yeast
OG 1.062

After 2 weeks I have an FG of 1.020.

I want it to be somewhat sweet but will it be crazy sweet at 1.020? I tasted the gravity sample and it was sweet but and definitely alcoholic.

I plan to cold crash and keg. I am worried about when it is keg carbonated. Will it balance?

1.020 is crazy-high for cider. All of the sugars you have there are fermentable, so it should hit 1.000 or maybe a bit lower. One common problem with using filtered juice, the yeast don't have the nutrients to multiply and the fermentation is slow.

I use yeast nutrient, typically some previous yeast, frozen, then boiled and added to the batch.

I think 1.000 for a sweet cider is going to be too low. I plan to stop it early but I am not sure where the best point is for a sweetish cider.

I stop mine around the 1.01 - 1.015 range for a sweet cider. Made some peach cider a while ago for my mum, she likes really sweet stuff. OG for that batch was 1.055 and pasteurised at 1.032. She loved it, but it was way to sweet for my liking. Tasting is the best indication, take a sample, and if you like it, crash at that point

At 1.012, I kegged. Sweeter than I would like but someone (me) will drink it.

Keep it out of the fridge for a bit longer and it should continue to drop.

So ciders usually stop fermenting at .990 right? Is there any calculators out there that tell me how much a unit of sugar will increase an sg by in order to better measure backsweetening?

I like a 1.012 Ish cider and so do Almost anyone I serve it too. If I bring a 5 gal corny to a party of that stuff, it's guaranteed to be empty by end of evening.

vespa2t said:

I like a 1.012 Ish cider and so do Almost anyone I serve it too. If I bring a 5 gal corny to a party of that stuff, it's guaranteed to be empty by end of evening.

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I just read from a thread where somebody calculated that for a can of concentrate with 176g of sugar, it will add approximately .00352 to the sg. Assuming that the sg of a cider that's fermented out is .990, then you would need 6 cans of apple juice concentrate to reach an sg of 1.012ish. And that isn't taking into account the sugars that will be fermented during carbing, which will lower the sg.

How does that sound? I was gonna backsweeten with 3 cans of concentrate but that doesn't seem like enough for something that's a bit sweeter.

Number2 – You kegged at 1.012 and it was too sweet for you, did you force carb it as well?

I would describe my desired flavor profile as "barely sweet", but the effect of carbonation is unclear to me. I am making Newell's Groundhog, (Woodchuck amber clone), which targets the gravity at 1.029(!!!!!). I'm shooting lower, still trying to figure out by how much.

I force carbed. I am not a cider drinker typically which may explain why I think it is too sweet. It is growing on me though.