First time brewer

So I think I have a good amount of knowledge, but just a couple questions. I am looking to make a high alcohol, sweet cider in the least amount of time possible. The hydrometer level of the cider (unpasturized, unfermented) is 1.05, and the acidity is between 3.6 and 4.0. should I add malic acid? and if so in what quantities?

Fermax yeast nutrients? I was debating to use these because i want to add sugar before bottling (for sweetness and carbonation), but i dont want the pressure to blow bottles. I dont want to have to wait 4 months to make sure all the yeast is dead before adding sugar.

obviously not all of the desired effects can happen, but the most important is high alcohol, and short time, with the best taste possible. any suggestions on what direction to take?

Your ph is between 3.6 and 4.0? I'm not sure why you'd want to add malic acid- apple juice is primarily malic acid anyway. I wouldn't really consider adding malic acid to adjust the ph in a cider- I'd do it strictly by taste and consider acid blend if you feel you need more acid.

A high alcohol sweet carbonated cider would be a very difficult thing to make well- first of all, you'd have to overcome the yeast with sugar if you wanted it to remain sweet. In doing that, you'd make rocket fuel that would take years to age out. I think an 18% cider would not be very good. You could try using a sweet cider yeast, and that should help with this- but then the yeast would be too pooped out to properly carbonate. If you weren't carbonating this cider, it would be very easy to make a sweet cider. You'd just stabilize to inhibit the yeast and then sweeten to taste. You can't do that if you are bottle carbonating, however.

Giving yourself four months is cutting this job way too short! What I would do is make some decisions- you said high alcohol and short time are your priorities. I would say you could do one or the other- high alcohol beverages are notorious for taking a while to ferment and even longer to smooth and age and actually taste ok. You could do a quick dry carbonated cider, or a quick sweet uncarbonated cider in a relatively short period of time if you had a low ABV.

paging dr. makingitgood...

If you make it sweet and stop fermentation, could you force carb it in a keg?

Yes, if you kill off the fermentation and backsweeten with sugar you need to keg to carbonate.

Hoosierbrewer said:

could you force carb it in a keg?

Click to expand...

yup...that's the only way to carb if you kill the yeast.
As far as "COULD" it be done...You can carb anything...milk if you wanted to.

High alcohol cider fast?

Mix in a glass:
3 parts apple juice.
1 part Everclear.

Bobby_M said:

High alcohol cider fast?

Mix in a glass:
3 parts apple juice.
1 part Everclear.

Click to expand...

This guy knows the score.

I myself am trying to make a fairly high ABV cider in 3 months, but not too worried about sweetness. More in the mid-sweet area. Also going to bottle as a flat cider. Sound possible to you folks?

-M