Backsweating Cider

I have been using a variation on Ed Wort's cider recipe with the Nottingham Yeast and some additional Brown Sugar and Cinnamon to the process.

The rest of the recipe is Mott's Apple Juice and the 2 pounds of Corn Sugar.

My reqeusts lately have been to produce the same 9-10% alcohol batch but have it backsweatened in the bottle.

What can be used for that? and in what quantities for a 5 to 5.5 gallon batch and when do you put it in? When your preparing to bottle or rack to a secondary?

This depends on some variables. Do you want it to be sparkling? Or do you want it to be still? It is much harder to have a sweet, sparkling homemade brew than it is a still.

If you want it still, you will need to buy some potassium sorbate and potassium metabilsulfite which stops the yeast from consuming the sugar you will be adding. Follow the directions on the packaging and let it sit a day or two before sweetening.

For sparkling, you can prime as normal but use a non-fermentable sugar such as xylitol or lactose to sweeten. You could pasteurise, which involves heating the bottles up to kill the yeast (should really only be attempted if you're an experienced brewer). There is a stickied thread which you can read on this method. You will also need to make sure that Nottingham can make it past 10% to cause carbonation in the bottle, otherwise you might need to swap to a wine/champagne yeast.

"Backsweating?" Are you putting sweat from your back into your cider, or do you mean backsweetening?

gratus fermentatio said:

"Backsweating?" Are you putting sweat from your back into your cider, or do you mean backsweetening?

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Beat me to it... nastiest cider recipe ever.

Halaster said:

I have been using a variation on Ed Wort's cider recipe with the Nottingham Yeast and some additional Brown Sugar and Cinnamon to the process.

The rest of the recipe is Mott's Apple Juice and the 2 pounds of Corn Sugar.

My reqeusts lately have been to produce the same 9-10% alcohol batch but have it backsweatened in the bottle.

What can be used for that? and in what quantities for a 5 to 5.5 gallon batch and when do you put it in? When your preparing to bottle or rack to a secondary?

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Hi neighbor! Oldmate's post is really helpful, I think. So is www.making hardcider.com Also, I think the Apfelwein recipe from Ed Wort is really more of an apple wine than a cider, at least as I think of a cider usually. 10% is definitely in the wine range. I would think still (not sparkling) would be the way to go. Plus its easier, as Oldmate said.

pappers_ said:

hi neighbor! Oldmate's post is really helpful, i think. So is www.makinghardcider.com also, i think the apfelwein recipe from ed wort is really more of an apple wine than a cider, at least as i think of a cider usually. 10% is definitely in the wine range. I would think still (not sparkling) would be the way to go. Plus its easier, as oldmate said.

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