Ready to bottle my first cider but...

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mklawz

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it's way too dry. This seems to be a common theme among newby cider brewers, but I'm still confused on how I should proceed at this point.

I have 4 gallon of apple cider (with WL720 Sweet Mead) sitting in a carboy for about 4-5 months. I want to sweeten it up a bit and bottle it.

I have a couple cans of frozen apple concentrate on hand. Will this sweeten AND carbonate it???

Please help!
 
What you should not do:
- Add the concentrate and then bottle. The yeast will ferment away all that delicious sugar inside your bottles, and they will explode.

What you can do:
1. Add Splenda to taste. As it's not fermentable, it will be safe in the bottles.
2. Add lactose. Again, not fermentable. Careful about adding too much as it can cause digestives "issues".
3. Kill off the yeast with sulfites, or potassium sorbate, then add sugar or concentrate. One common sulfite found at most LHBS is the Campden tablet. Add 1 per gallon and let it sit for ~48 hours.
 
I've used concentrate on several batches and they carbonated just fine. It doesn't sweeten like sugar but adds back sort of sweet apple flavor. The key is to check the amount of sugar in the concentrate and not use more than you would for beer.
 
12 oz, by weight, of Tree Top concentrate should be just right for 4 gallons of cider, to carb the bottles.

Tree top. 12 oz makes 48 oz = (6) - 8 oz servings so that’s 2 oz's a serving, not reconstituted. It has 26 grams sugar per serving. Normal sugar has 4.2 grams sugar per teaspoon or 3.15 grams per 3/4 teaspoon which is the normal per bottle rate of sugar for carbing in a bottle. So 3 oz, by weight, per gallon to carb.

3/4 teaspoon sugar X 12 bottles (1 gal) = 37.8 grams sugar. 3 oz of Tree Top concentrate = 39 grams sugar. So 4 x 37.8 grams sugar = 151 grams and 4 x 39 grams concentrate = 156 grams of sugar.


This is for Tree Top. Another concentrate may not be the same.
 
yikes, that's a lot of math. thanks!

ok I got a generic brand but the sugar looks about the same.

So, just mix the concentrate in with the cider in the bottling bucket?

I assume you dont use any priming sugar then? just the concentrate, right?
 
If you let the concentrate thaw, I would imagine you could just add the concentrate "juice" to the bottling bucket, and just rack onto it like you would with a priming sugar solution otherwise.
 
3/4 teaspoon sugar X 12 bottles (1 gal) = 37.8 grams sugar. 3 oz of Tree Top concentrate = 39 grams sugar. So 4 x 37.8 grams sugar = 151 grams and 4 x 39 grams concentrate = 156 grams of sugar.

If a gallon (U.S.) is 128 oz and bottles are 12 oz ,then it should be 10 bottles to a gallon. Still should be within the range for the amount of sugar needed.
Also do a search ,there are several threads that tell how much concentrate or straight apple juice to use.
I just bottled a batch,but forget how much I used. I think it was a 1/2 can of concentrate for a 3 gallon batch . I did want mine less carbonated than beer.
 
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