Producing a sweet, carbonated cider?

I'm looking at going to the local orchard on Monday to pick up 5 gallons UV pasteurized cider. I want to create a final product that I can bottle carbonate but that still has some apple sweetness and body to it. Does anyone have any recommendations as to how I would go about this? Thanks in advance.

Use an ale yeast. Try US-05 safale. This will leave more residual sweetness than a dry yeast and will accentuate the fruity flavors. Champagne yeast will leave you with a drier taste and less fruit flavor.

You can back sweeten either with non-fermentable sweeteners.

Thanks, I was kind of cleaning toward us-05 anyway because I really like the yeast and it's convenient. If you don't mind answering one more question.. will it be necessary for me to rack to secondary?

You will almost certainly not need to rack. I left a batch sitting for 6 months and it was better than ever.

The only exception being if you added some sort of flavor addition such as fresh fruit or herbs and needed to get your beer off of that once your flavors were how you wanted them.

If you're just doing cider and yeast just let that bad boy sit as long as you can possibly stand it in primary and bottle when ready.

6 months in primary for sweet carb cider?

IMO, w/o experience. get it low ~1.01 - 1.015 add priming sugar, carb up to desired level and pasteurize. let sit in bottle for a few months, or as long as you can stand.

That is my plan at least.
(please feel free to rip it apart)

I have actually had some fairly good success making sweet hard carbonated cider in about 10 days with a 4.5 % abv.

For a 5 gallon batch I use:
1 package of Nottingham ale yeast

Mix about 5 cups of cider with about 3/4 cup of brown sugar, and 1/2 a cup of honey. Then put the yeast in there for about an hour.

Then in the Fermenter I put the rest of the cider in there and then pitch the yeast starter.

I have found that after about 7 days, it will have about 4.5% abv, and it has a SG of ~1.020. From there I put it in the bottles without priming it, and I do the 20 oz coke bottle test. Typically it only takes them a day to carbonate, then I bottle pasteurize them.

This has had the most success for me in terms of crowd pleasing. (And it has a relatively short turn around time, which is good because I am impatient). And the guy at the local orchard now gives me the cider for free as long as i bring him 1/3 of what it makes.


With that being said, I do have 1 case of the apple cider which I let ferment out completely and it is about 10% abv. I plan on leaving that in the closet for a few more months tame the flavors.

wfowlks said:

I have actually had some fairly good success making sweet hard carbonated cider in about 10 days with a 4.5 % abv.

For a 5 gallon batch I use:
1 package of Nottingham ale yeast

Mix about 5 cups of cider with about 3/4 cup of brown sugar, and 1/2 a cup of honey. Then put the yeast in there for about an hour.

Then in the Fermenter I put the rest of the cider in there and then pitch the yeast starter.

I have found that after about 7 days, it will have about 4.5% abv, and it has a SG of ~1.020. From there I put it in the bottles without priming it, and I do the 20 oz coke bottle test. Typically it only takes them a day to carbonate, then I bottle pasteurize them.

Click to expand...

How do you do that bottle pasteurization? I've read a a couple different things about it..

There was another thread that I saw earlier today that talked about a sweet cider, where the poster had let it ferment for a few days only, bottled it, and then pasteurized it by putting the bottles in his dishwasher and letting it run on hot for ten minutes. Based on his ingredients, he mentioned it still be 5%, but still having a decent amount of sweetness from the apples.

Here's that thread...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f81/5-day-sweet-country-cider-265986/

Thank you, good link. I'm looking into that dish washer pasteurization..

I have followed this thread to the T, and had success every time:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/

Its easy, I do about 12 bottles at a time in a 9 gallon pot.

I don't trust the dish washer pasteurization, because the water /steam is squirting around a lot and I like to have more control and make sure that I killed off all the little yeasties... so that they don't turn my cider into hand grenades

But the recipe I had above is a HUGE hit, and now I can't make it fast enough, because everyone one wants it, I may have to go pick up another fermenter so that I can make more...

It taste's like normal cider but packs a punch... something about it, it hits harder than what the ABV says

great tips!