Q1. Bottle Caps - Q2. Yeast - Q3. Backsweetening & Carbing

Hey guys...i'm working on my first cider batch. I have some fresh pressed juice coming from a local orchard that is specially pressed with hard cider brewing in mind...so I don't want to waste it...

30% Suncrisp(cross between Golden Delicious x (Cortland x Cox's Orange Pippin))
30% Ida Red (cross between Jonathan and Wagener)
10% Fuji (cross between Ralls-Genet and Red Delicious)
10% Mutsu aka Crispin (cross between Golden Delicious and Indo)
5% Jona Gold (cross between Golden Delicious and Jonathan)
5% Melrose (cross between Jonathan and Red Delicious)
5% Golden Blush
5% Golden Delicious

I'm looking to make something sweeter with that nice distinct apple taste and with a modest amount of carbonation.

So my three questions...

1. Is there any advantage to using oxygen absorbing bottle caps over standard caps?

2. What is the best type of yeast to use to achieve my desired results? (I looked at that one post with the juice, sugar, yeast experiments...but he said he was out to make a dryer cider and thats not what i really want)

3. How do I best go about sweetening and carbing without creating bombs?

Thanks in advance...

I have to carb in the bottle due to storage/equipment restrictions...I do have a nice basement that stays in the 60 degree range so I plan on bottle aging...

1. I've never used oxygen absorbing caps, and I've never had a batch go bad due to it.

2. An Ale yeast is what I think you're looking for, but even this will still take you down to about 1.000 or so as apple juice is made vastly of fully fermentable sugar. I've Used US-05, US-04 and Nottingham (and I've got a batch with WLP 550 bubbling away right now), and I highly suggest any of these, but it sounds like you want us-04, which ended up most fruity.

3. If you're bottling carbing, the only viable way to backsweeten would be with an unfermentable sugar such as Splenda, Lactose, Xythol, Stveia, etc. The way to backsweeten with normal sugar would be if you stabalized the cider by killing all the yeast, adding sugar/juice, force-carbed in a keg, then used a beer gun to bottle them, but it sounds like you can't do that, so it's unfermentables for you.

So I can sweeten with some unfermentable sugar...then carb with fermentable sugar? Do I throw all this sugar in at the end right before bottling?

Thanks by the way for your answers!

bri11oh34d said:

So I can sweeten with some unfermentable sugar...then carb with fermentable sugar? Do I throw all this sugar in at the end right before bottling?

Thanks by the way for your answers!

Click to expand...

Put in both carbing and sweetening sugars (fermentable and unfermentable, respectivly) into your bottling bucket, just as you normally would before bottling.

Thanks Freezblade. I'm working on a high ABV wheat and I was wondering how to use lactose. Good post, THANKS!

-May the Yeast be With You