How Much Carbonating Sugar Per Bottle

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punkin

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After many searches i haven't found an exact answer to my question, so thought i'd post.

I have nearly 40 litres of untreated apples i've juiced that i'm in the process of fermenting to dryness.

I'm using Danstil C distillers yeast as that is what i had on hand and in my experience that will ferment most things down to .990 or so.

I wish to bottle into 750ml beer bottles (just over 25 us oz) and i want to add the sugar to the bottles rather than to the whole batch of cider before bottling. I have no interest in chemically treating the cider/cold crashing or backsweetning.

Back when i used to bottle beer before i got my keg fridge i'd use a heaped teaspoon of white cane sugar to carbonate.

This gave a good beer with a nice head after a few weeks in the bottle, and i never lost one over a period of twenty years.:mug:



I've never made cider before though, so my question is;

Will the ratio of sugar be the same here to get a sparkling cider? Will the same amount of sugar act in the same way?

Or will i end up with apple beer that holds a head ect
 
I use a scale to measure sugar, so I have no idea if a heaping teaspoon is good or not, but I would use the same as I would for beer. Carbonation is related to pressure. I would expect "X" amount of sugar to provide the same pressure whether it's in a beer, cider, mead, or whatever.

Why don't you want to add sugar to the whole batch? I think you have a greater chance of a mistake measuring a small amount into a lot of bottles than you are making one addition to the whole batch.
 
Thanks, that's what i was thinking.
I prefer to add sugar to the bottles as that's the way i've always done it. It is very easy to repeatably measure a teaspoon, it's quick and easy and it ensures even distribution. I have no maths to do and it doesn't matter if my measurements on the side of my fermenters are spot on or off a bit.
If i get 52 bottles or 56 the measurement will be correct.
 
Beer and cider; pretty much the same amount of priming sugar.

I use apple juice to prime with. 1 cup per gallon. That would work out at 1 fl ozs per pint. For a 24 ozs bottle, that would be about 1.5 fl-ozs.

Don't know if this is any help.
 
be careful carbing ciders you can easily end up with 5 gallons of bottle bombs!

There is a thread floating around on this forum with a How-To on how to Pasteurize Cider. The idea is to let the cider carbonate to the amount you want then you heat it to kill the yeast. Read the thread it is very informative!



If you are putting the cider in a keg just add the sugar as you normally would to carbonate and when it had reached the level of carbonation you prefer toss the keg into the fridge and cold crash the sucker. You may want to shorten your keg output tube as to not suck up a bunch of yeast too.


https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/easy-stove-top-pasteurizing-pics-193295/
 
6.5 g / L for me, that consistently gets it just right for me regardless of yeast, i don't like it over-fizzy
 
be careful carbing ciders you can easily end up with 5 gallons of bottle bombs!

There is a thread floating around on this forum with a How-To on how to Pasteurize Cider. The idea is to let the cider carbonate to the amount you want then you heat it to kill the yeast. Read the thread it is very informative!



If you are putting the cider in a keg just add the sugar as you normally would to carbonate and when it had reached the level of carbonation you prefer toss the keg into the fridge and cold crash the sucker. You may want to shorten your keg output tube as to not suck up a bunch of yeast too.

Carbing cider is basically the same as carbing beer. If your cider is fully fermented and you can measure sugar, there should be very little risk of bottle bombs. Thousands of homebrewers do it.

Punkin fermented his cider to dryness and is not backsweetening, so there should be no reason to pasteurize.

If kegging, why not just pressurize with CO2? It's quicker and easier.
 
Thanks guys, appreciatte the confirmation of my thoughts.

I'll be aware of aging times and try racking for the first ever time and secondary fermentation etc that i normally never deal with doing kit extract beer and other washes for the boiler that don't matter a damn if they're clear or not:mug:


I love a new learning experience, i love cider and i'm sure i'm gunna love making my own.

Really hoping my apples at home including my cider apple tree start bearing well soon.:rockin:
 
I use the following link to calculate the priming sugar needed for the CO<sub>2</sub> volume desired, entering 0.26 for the beer volume (it will calculate the amount for 1 liter that way):

http://www.tastybrew.com/calculators/priming.html

Then divide the amount of sugar by 1000 (converts to sugar per milliliter) then multiply by the number of milliliters per bottle.

So, for example if I am bottling for 2.25 volumes of CO<sub>2</sub> (normal for a cider), the calculator tells me that for each liter I need to add 0.2 oz of table sugar. Doing the math, that means I add 0.15 oz (4.2 grams or 1.5 teaspoons) of sugar per 750 mL bottle.

I know it seems complicated but I had some cider bombs before I started using this procedure and haven't had any problems since. :mug:

BTW - if this is your first cider, two things that I'd suggest. First, be certain that you aerate the juice well (swirl the carboy for at least 5 minutes), after you Campden it for 48 hours. This will release the sulfur dioxide and add oxygen for the yeast before you pitch it. Second, let it age at least a couple of months in the bottle before drinking it. The latter is particularly true if you decide to do some fruit ciders (pear is usually the next adventure for the cider enthusiast and it takes at least that long for the pear flavor to overtake the alcohol dryness). There are some quick and dirty cider recipes from processed juice that don't need the aging but a GOOD cider takes a little time to develop character.
 
Thanks a bunch Drj. it's too late for your first advice on the edit, i just plain juiced the apples and pitched the yeast. it is what it will be and if it don't taste good i'll just boil it after its finnished.:drunk:

I wasn't prepared, but will be next time.

Juice was well and truely aerated though, iget the yeast needs thing as i do a lot of fermenting.

So long as the cider tastes like it has potential, i'll leave it on the secondary for a month or two coming into winter, and then bottle for ageing.

may even use one of my kegs, although fridge space is at a premium.

Not really into buying juice, i'm a tight fisted bastard.
 
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