Sweet Cider Keg to Bottles

I want to make a semi-Sweet cider for X-mas presents. This means bottles. Every Cider I have tried turns out very dry as is the topic of many threads in this forum. I want to try and use my keg system to force carbonate in a corny and then transfer to bottles, and hopefully preserve the carbonation. I have 24 swing top champagne bottles I plan to use.



- Brew cider as per normal.
- Cider will be very dry SG 1.00-ish
- Sulfate to kill yeast, stop fermentation
- Rack to Corny Keg
- Back-sweeten with Apple Concentrate or sugar.
- Force Carbonate in keg
- Rack to bottles, seal quickly and hopefully capture some carbonation in the bottle.
- Pray I don't end up with a huge mess.

Has anyone tried this? Any recommendations?

Why don't you use an ale yeast so that you don't ferment it to dryness? You could avoid back sweetening it altogether. There is a good thread on bottling from the keg in the bottling/kegging forum that will help with that part too.

If you use an ale yeast and cold crash, you can use the natural apple sugar without sulfating and backsweetening. You can use your keg to carbonate.

You can read the sticky or search on cold crash for more info. If you do it properly, you will remove the yeast and it will be stable, even with a fairly high amount of apple sugar left.

Use preferably fresh unpasteurized juice and plan for 1-3 weeks in the primary, crash, at least a week in the secondary to make sure it is stable and as much keg conditioning as you want.

If this is your first time, you probably want to tell your friends and family to keep any bottles you give them in a cool place or drink them by next Spring.

Even if the ale yeast ferments it too dry, you can crash chill, and backsweeten in the keg. Crash cooling works very well to drop out the yeast. Even then, I would recommend beer bottles and not wine bottles. Just because I'm paranoid.

You're going to need some potassium sorbate in there at the stabilisation (kill yeast).

The amount of sulfite required to kill yeast is too high to be useable (think burnt match smell in cider, Mmmmm). Typically, for 6 gallons US, 1tsp. of potassium sorbate + 1/4 tsp. sulfite will stabilise wine/cider. Sulfite is a stress factor for yeast (problems fermenting/reproducing) while potassium sorbate inhibits yeast growth, so a refermentation in bottles can't start.

If you sorbate it, I strongly suggest you try a little taste of it first. It will definitely affect the taste of your batch. Some people are OK with the taste, most not.

Why don't you use an ale yeast

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I have used Ale yeasts each time I have tried cider, it always ends up super dry. I don't have the knowledge or experience yet to try a high OG and let the yeast kill themselves with alcohol at 7-8% and still have some sugar left.

Cold Crashing and racking might be a better idea then killing with chemicals I will probably try that instead.

Even if the ale yeast ferments it too dry, you can crash chill, and backsweeten in the keg. Crash cooling works very well to drop out the yeast.

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I will probably try this, can anyone recommend an OG to start with and still have some sugar left? if it ends up dry I will backsweeten and bottle from the keg.

There is a good thread on bottling from the keg in the bottling/kegging forum that will help with that part too.

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I must have missed that one I will look again.

Ale yeasts will ferment to dryness if you let them, but they ferment slower and are a lot easier to stop with cold crashing or even repeated racking

I usually start around 1.060 to 1.065 and crash around 1.005 to 1.010. When to crash is a matter of taste. Start checking when the ferment starts to slow down.

Kevin
Have you successfully crashed anything has high as 1.015-1.020. I haven't had any luck that high

Metal- If you try to fill from your keg there is a design for a counter pressure gun in kegging/bottling. I've never used it but the reviews seem positive. My friend bottles with a picnic tap but he puts the keg into an ice bath to keep the carbonation in the liquid

Rugen - yes I've crashed 3068 as high as 1.026. The wheat yeasts are easy to get to stick - I think probably because they use a lot of nitrogen, so that when you get them off the yeast cake they starve. The ale yeasts taste a little sticky sweet to my taste if they are much over 1.012, but the wheat yeasts taste more juicy and less sticky sweet at higher sgs.

It begins...

I went to Costco yesterday and picked up 24 liters of Sun-Rype apple juice. Pasturized, only ingredients apple juice, vitamin C.

The SG of the juice at room temp was 1.050

Since the ale yeast I have will chew that up and make it very dry I bought a big bottle of honey as well. I didn't know how much I would need to add to get the SG up to 1.060-1.065 which is where I wanted it, so I did some detcective work. I couldn't get the honey to dissolve very well at room temp so I had to heat the juice up a bit. I took another SG reading when the juice was warm the SG had dropped to 1.040 so I figured I needed to add honey to the warm juice until the warm SG was 1.050-1.055, I figured if I did it fast enough then the cooling wouldn't effect the SG trading much.

I added 1/2 cup of honey to the warm juice, and as luck would have it I got an SG reading of 1.052. Good enough for me. I had only warmed 1/5th the juice so I added another 2 cups of honey to the warm juice, which should set my final room temp OG at 1.062. Transfered everything to the carboy, opening 24 1 Liter packs of juice is tedious.

My final room temp SG reading from the now room temp Carboy is 1.060. I will either try and crashcool/rack it off the yeast to stop the fermentation at the desired final sweetness. If that doesn't work and it is too dry I will try and backsweeten in the keg. I will also try not to nuke the yeast with chemicals unless I find I have too.

Now to clean up.

I used Cvillekevins advice for the cold crashing outside my apartment on the balcony at 10 celsius for a couple days and stopped fermentation dead in its tracks at 1.015 and bottled it. I wasn`t sure if the yeast would restart after or not and so far it still hasn`t after being at room temp for like 2 weeks. This left some of the apple sugar and the taste was pleasant although just a little bit of acidity from the apples.

based on my experience, I`m sure you could cold crash ok and it`d be better tasting without the chemicals

Primary has been bubbling away for 11 days now! had a taste a few days ago and it was still pretty sweet. I didn't get a good SG reading so I don't know what it is at.

One thing I have notices is that at certain times there is no head or foam on the surface, and at other times there is about an inch of bubbles stacked up on themselves. The head will come and go 3 or 4 times a day. There are little bubbles percolating up all the time, so I don't know why the head comes and goes.

Any ideas?