botting gravity? (sorry)

I have some cider that I would like to bottle to clear up space for future projects. Right now the stuff reads 1.010, and I know that it will go lower (perhaps slightly lower than 1.000).

I would be bottling this into Grolsch green bottles.

I have heard that you would not want to bottle more than three volumes(?).
My question is at what gravity can I bottle these, and not worry about bombs, but get some carbonation. I don't need lots of bubbles. Some will be fine. I just don't want to have any busted bottles.

I searched for a bit because I know this has been discussed to death, but I could not find a thread that got right to the point.

Thanks for any help.

,003-.004 will get you adequate carb levels and be safe.

Like roadymi said 0.003 gravity points will provide enough sugar to carbonate your cider. This works out to about 1 oz per gallon. If you've used this strain of yeast and this juice before consult your previous finishing gravities to find out where it stops naturally. If this is the first time look up the attenuation for your yeast. For something like S-05 this is 73-77%. From there take your starting gravity and multiply it by 1-0.77 whatever the highest attentuation level is. So for a 7% cider you would have an OG around 1.070. The last two numbers 70*(1-0.77) = 16.1 so your final gravity will be around 1.016. Add the 0.003 to this giving you a target bottling gravity of 1.019.

Thank you guys. That is exactly what I was looking for.
Mods feel free to delete if needed.

Leithoa said:

Like roadymi said 0.003 gravity points will provide enough sugar to carbonate your cider. This works out to about 1 oz per gallon. If you've used this strain of yeast and this juice before consult your previous finishing gravities to find out where it stops naturally. If this is the first time look up the attenuation for your yeast. For something like S-05 this is 73-77%. From there take your starting gravity and multiply it by 1-0.77 whatever the highest attentuation level is. So for a 7% cider you would have an OG around 1.070. The last two numbers 70*(1-0.77) = 16.1 so your final gravity will be around 1.016. Add the 0.003 to this giving you a target bottling gravity of 1.019.

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the attenuation numbers you look up don't apply to cider, they are for beer. you should normally assume 100% attenuation unless you are going really boozy and the yeast can't handle the alcohol, or if you are doing something crazy like keeving. but s05 for example will easily go above 10% abv in a cider. i agree not to go over 0.003; i shoot for 0.002 for a 'normal' carb level, but i would let it ferment all the way out, let it clear, then prime and bottle, but that's just my preference. bottle bombs are dangerous, gushers are not dangerous but ruin your day

dinnerstick said:

the attenuation numbers you look up don't apply to cider, they are for beer. you should normally assume 100% attenuation unless you are going really boozy and the yeast can't handle the alcohol, or if you are doing something crazy like keeving. but s05 for example will easily go above 10% abv in a cider. i agree not to go over 0.003; i shoot for 0.002 for a 'normal' carb level, but i would let it ferment all the way out, let it clear, then prime and bottle, but that's just my preference. bottle bombs are dangerous, gushers are not dangerous but ruin your day

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This is nonsense. My cider batches have always had similar attenuation to the quoted beer numbers. Having a finished gravity around 1.010 is nothing abnormal in a cider; in fact, that's the FG on a cider I'm bottling today, which was just 5 gallons of juice, 1 lb brown sugar and a pack of Nottingham.

Fizzycist said:

This is nonsense. My cider batches have always had similar attenuation to the quoted beer numbers. Having a finished gravity around 1.010 is nothing abnormal in a cider; in fact, that's the FG on a cider I'm bottling today, which was just 5 gallons of juice, 1 lb brown sugar and a pack of Nottingham.

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I dunno about calling that nonsense. My experience generally lines up with what dinnerstick wrote, finishing .998-1.004. Which are pretty common numbers as reported on this board. Never heard of finishing near 1.010 unless the batch is being cold crashed or being treated differently in some other way.

LeBreton said:

I dunno about calling that nonsense. My experience generally lines up with what dinnerstick wrote, finishing .998-1.004. Which are pretty common numbers as reported on this board. Never heard of finishing near 1.010 unless the batch is being cold crashed or being treated differently in some other way.

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Nope, not cold crashing, not stuck, and my batches end between 1.006 and 1.013.

Why would a nutrient imbalanced solution(apple juice/meads/&c) ferment further than wort which tends to be a bit more nutrient balanced? I agree that getting below 1.0 is quite common but a ton of those recipes use wine and champagne yeasts. Without comparing OGs or ABVs I'm not sure looking just at the FG will provide anything useful. Sure you'll avoid bottle bombs if you assume 100% but will you get the same attenuation if you use beer yeasts? I would think not.
I did a quick search for recipes using beer yeasts but it seems like everyone is cold crashing. So could some more people weigh in on how dry ciders get with beer yeast?

Fizzycist said:

This is nonsense.

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i swear it isn't! i don't know how you get yours to stop so high but you're on to something, there are hoards of people on this very forum trying various crazy ways to get their ciders to stop at 1.010, but they keep going down to or below 1.000; read the pasteurization sticky- it's hundreds of pages of people trying to stop their yeast.
attenuation rant: the attenuation numbers given by the yeast companies reflect the propensity for those strains to consume more complex sugars, all of these yeasts will happily eat mono-and di-saccharides (maltose, fructose, sucrose/dextrose are all disaccharides and therefore easy yeast fodder), and they have varied appetites for 3-sugar molecules like maltotriose, and less if any hankering for anything larger than that. unlike grains which make starch, apples store their energy as simple sugar, therefore the yeast can consume it all unless something else stops them. the attenuation numbers are meant to reflect how much of a 'normal' beer wort composition the strain will eat, meaning how much of the 3 and 4 sugar molecules they are likely to consume. apple juice has none of these, so if your cider stops at 1.010 there is another reason that has nothing to do with the beer attenuation number; temperature, nutrient, alcohol, i'm not sure what since none of these seems very likely. also pear juice has some unfermentable sugar, but you said it's 100% apple. if you are getting consistent results and bottling safely that's great, since ciders tend to taste pretty nice at 1.010, but i wouldn't suggest that anyone else try bottling at that gravity unless they are 100% sure the yeast is 100% inactive.

Sorry for the "nonsense" quote, I shoulda recognized that my experience won't be universal. As for my process I use 5.5 gallons of store bought, pasteurized juice (not into pressing my own yet) 1 lb brown sugar boiled briefly in a little of the juice, 0.5 tsp yeast nutrient boiled with the sugar, 2.5 tsp pectic enzyme to clear it up, and a pack of dry ale yeast (usually nottingham). OG ~ 1.062 FG 1.006-1.0013. Fermentation room a steady 62 degrees F. The active fermentation (till hydrometer readings stop changing) takes about a week and a half, and I leave it in the primary for 2 to 3 weeks. Sometimes I secondary, sometimes I don't, it doesn't seem to make much difference.