Carbing Cider

I just did 5 gallons of tree top apple juice w/ knottingham dry yeast. Has been in primary for 5 weeks. I kow want to bottle in 12oz bottles. Can I use the standard 3/4 tsp of table sugar in the bottles for carbonation? Just want to make sure this will work and not cause bottle bombs. Ultimately I would like to keg 3 gallons and bottle the remaining 2 gallons.

thanks for input

Mike

I would check out some of the cider recipes and use what they recommend. There was a good discussion about sweet cider using artificial sweeteners. I did a batch on Sunday ( 3 gallons apple juice, 1.5 lb light brown sugar, ec 1118 yeast). I plan on letting it sit for 4-6 wks, then bottle. Should be ready for thanksgiving. If you can't find it from the recipe section, let me know and I will dig it up.

You do realize that you've made a dry English-style cider, NOT a sweet American style cider. Just asking because most people who make cider for the first time don't realize that you can't just ferment apple juice and end up with a Woodchuck. Most people do NOT like dry English cider.

Since you have a keg, the backsweetening procedure is VERY easy. The backsweetening procedure for bottles is a PITA. For that reason, if you DO want a sweet cider, I'd recommend you keg the whole thing, then to backsweeten just add 1/2 gallon of sweet apple juice to 4.5 gallons of fermented cider once you have it in the keg and cold so the yeast are dormant.

I do alot of ciders....Let me know if you have any questions!

I do realize that I was making a dry cider. I haven't figured out what I was going to do with it when its done fermenting. I had read about adding on of the artificial sweetners and was thinking about doing 1/2 sweet and 1/2 dry. This was an off shoot of Ed's Apfelwisen (sp). I figure anything that gets 10,000 post then I need to try it. I didn't follow it exactly since I couldn't get the dextrose in time. I wasn't planning on kegging it but that is a fantastic idea. Any other suggestions would be appreciated.

Yes on the dry cider that was reccomended to me so....thanks for the backsweeten instructions sounds great. ! will do this weekend.

Rgarry - what are you going to add for sweetner when you bottle to carb them? and how much per bottle

thanks

M

I haven't decided but I read about artificial sweeteners and was going to try adding the one that comes in blue packages. Add.....taste.......add etc. with that said, I will try it unsweetened first and decide.

I can't consume artificial sweeteners, so I like a dry cider also. I have bottle carbed using 22 oz bottles and have had good, consistent results with 1 tsp white table sugar per bottle. I rack the bottles first and then use a funnel to drop the sugar in, cap and then rotate a little to make sure the sugar is dissolved. Then bottle condition in my basement. It usually takes about 2 weeks to get a good fizz, and if it is too much-I cold crash in the fridge. I haven't had a problem with my dry cider-which is alot like the apfelwein recipie but have run into problems/geyeser/bottle bombs back sweetening with frozen concentrates. We drank a bottle from May last night that we forgot about and it had improved with age. I wish we hadn't drank most of it right away, as I think I may have 4 bottles left.
I've used carbonation drops too-but I think they have artificial sweeteners in them. The fizz they produce is good, but I used the low end of the recommended drops per bottle and aged a long time. The one awesome tip is filling a plastic screw top bottle so you can feel how carbonated it it. I used to fill 3-4 and go from there, but I don't have easy access to plastic bottles so I've just been opening and drinking to test.

sounds great - thanks sioux !

Just make sure they stay cold if you back sweeten them.

I just did my batch of cider.. but I used 4 gal of juice, and 2 lb of brown sugar. Ended up getting 1.070- to 1.000.. It taste really good, and actually has a great apple sweetness left to it to me. I plan to toss 1/2 gal of white grape juice into it, mix it, and keg it all. Plan to bottle it off the kegs when I transport it. Hopefully it goes quickly as I don't want to store this stuff around in the kegerator much taking up precious space!

I back sweetened by adding Sorbistat K and Kmeta, then added another gallon of apple juice as the sweetener...tranfered it to a keg and carbed it...I like it better carbed. Sorbistat K won't stop fermentation that is active but it will prevent new fermentation from starting.

I like the idea of plastic bottles. I have a bunch that I use for root beer for the kids. I think I'm going to try 1 packet of stevia per bottle ( for the ones that I sweeten up) and carb per directions for apfelwein. I was planning on making for Thanksgiving but if aging really improves, Christmas will be 3 months. Decision, decisions, decisions.

I've got a batch that is done and has cleared nicely. I"m planning on 1 gal of white grape juice, and seeing what it taste like. Plan to carb in keg without adding anything to the cider, and then bottle to take with me to the mountains at the end of the month.