Why so much booze?

I fermented a cider which started out at 1.052 and ended at 1.000. That's a whopping 6.8% ABV.

The scary thing is, it tastes like soda. It's good stuff made out of whole foods organic unfiltered apple juice, but drinking 2 pints is like drinking 4 normal beers, or so it feels since it hits you so fast.

Why does this stuff ferment out like this (I usually make beer and end in the 10s) and is there a way to stop it from getting this strong? I had to sorbate and backsweeten this stuff.

I used S04. It was actually kind of a weird ferment, it ended up sticking at 1.016 @ 64 degrees. I ended up raising it to 68 degrees and I added some DAP and yeast nutrient and stirred, then it went crazy and gave me this crunk juice. I would have preferred it to have stopped around 1.010.

For comparison's sake, The Graff I made started at 1.060 and my 1 gallon test batch ended at 1.002 and the 4 gallon regular ended at 1.006 (it might still ferment out a bit more). One gallon of the 5 gallon batch is wort, the other four gallons is apple juice.

I'm making an educated (or maybe not so educated) guess, but I think ciders ferment out drier because the sugar in apple juice/cider is more fermentable than the sugars made from a wort (which could have more or less fermentable sugar in it depending on certain factors, such as mash temperature).

The other factor is the type of yeast, but with my graff I used a US-05, which is supposed to only have around ~70-75% attenuation (if I remember correctly), and I still ended up with fairly dry graff.

Just some ideas...not sure of any of it is valid.

badmajon said:

Why does this stuff ferment out like this (I usually make beer and end in the 10s) and is there a way to stop it from getting this strong? I had to sorbate and backsweeten this stuff.

Click to expand...

all simple sugars, easily fermentable. you can try cold crashing, racking and sulfite+sorbating

+1 to all the above, cider + ale or wine yeast will ferment out to dry, unless you do something to stop it.

Read through www.makinghardcider.com for a good introduction to cider making and instructions.

For semi-dry sparkling cider, I use the stove-top pasteurizing method described in the sticky thread and here http://www.singingboysbrewing.com/Apple-Cider.html

I don't understand the question.

yeah, 6.8% isn't that crazy. i made a cyser with 5 gals of apple juice, and 6 pounds of honey. came out around 10.5% and then i put it in a keg, carbed it up and drank it out of pint glasses. that was a mistake! it's gone now though and mornings are much easier.

are you a pilot?