Weak Cider

My first round of brewing is done... but the cider I made is only at around 3% ABV. The last batch I have cold crashed and racked in the fridge.

Here is my question: I want to give the cider a little more kick. it's SG is 1.01 now... can I add sugar, take it out of the fridge, and let it go back to fermenting?

If so, what kind of sugar and how much in a (nearly full) 5 gallon Carboy?

Thanks

if the SG is 1.1, then you have a massively stalled fermentation.

maskednegator said:

if the SG is 1.1, then you have a massively stalled fermentation.

Click to expand...

i agree. what was your OG? did you temperature adjust the readings?

Right, that was the intention of cold crashing and racking it. I didn't want anything too dry... but I find that I want more kick. OG was 1.04... being my first batch I didn't really understand that I should have added sugar then. Can I start at it now and restart the fermentation?

1.040 sounds about normal for a cider..BUT the F.G shouldn't be 1.100 now as you posted. Do you mean 1.001?? You could have added som honey or other fermentables like DME, or sugar and you would have upped the final alcohol content, but it wouldn't have taken longer to age and mellow too. a 3% cider isn't too bad.

Dan

Woops, 1.01 NOT 1.1, I fixed the initial post

So I am wondering if I can let the fermentation process start again (take it out of the fridge... it is a wild yeast brew) and add a few pounds of sugar.

don't think it probably will...1.001 is pretty low, it COULD possibly start up a bit and take this down to dryness at about .997 or so, but if you are close to 1.000 that may be all the further it'll go. You also have to adjust your SG reading for temperature too, what temp is your mead, and then factor that into your reading.

Dan

It should be possable for you to restart frementation . If you let the cider warm back to room temp take a pot with a small amount of water a your sugar at least a pound and slowly warm the water untill all the sugar is disolved and simmer for a few mins. you almost want to make a syrup. then add this to your cider mix it well and pitch your yeast.

Ok, so here is what I did... being that it was a wild yeast batch and that I still have 10 gallons of the cider I pressed frozen I took three pounds of sugar and dissolved it in about two cups of cider. I mixed the solution with the remainder of the gallon of (formerly) frozen cider (that came right off the press) then I added all of it to the (warmed up to room temp) carboy. the SG when I was done was 1.038 (up from 1.010)

This, I hope, solves several problems. The extra gallon of cider should have the same wild yeast in it as it was from the same pressing thus, upping the amount of yeast. The sugar provides those little devils something to eat raising the ABV. The additional gallon of cider also takes care of the amount of head space remaining after racking it twice and cold crashing.

Ok, am I a total whack job for trying this?

Thanks,
John

Even if you had completely dry cider, as long as you didn't add chemicals to it, it would start fermenting again with any new sugars. Secondly, I probably wouldn't have added sugar - real ciders have no added sugar. What you could have done is added more juice, which would have started fermenting again and raised the alcohol.

Well, hind sight is 20/20 I guess. The fermentation took off without a problem though so away we go.