back sweetening...

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kewlio250

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can someone explain this process to me or link me to a relevant thread, i am completely lost on the concept.
 
The simple answer to back sweetening would be to let your cider ferment completely dry to a specific gravity of 1.000 (or lower)...then when you bottle, add something to the batch to sweeten it to your personal taste.

The "something" could be a fermentable sugar or a non-fermentable sugar. If you were to add table sugar or apple juice concentrate, the yeast would continue to eat this and you would need to possibly pasteurize the bottles to kill the yeast (to keep from getting bottle bombs) If you add a non-fermentable sugar like Spenda or Lactose, then you don't have to worry about your yeasties over carbonating your bottles. (But you would still need to prime them like normal for carbonation)
 
The end product that you're going for is what will determine your method.

Assuming you want sweet cider. And the question is do you want it carbonated or not?

If you want it sweet and carbed, two methods work. Backsweeten with a non fermentable, and then prime it with a fermentable to let the yeast carb it for.you. this method needs no interaction after mixing. Just bottle it and wait. Non fermentables are things like lactose, splenda, stevia. I used this method with my first cider and took second place with it in a competition. I used 2tsp of steviol glycosides from my lhbs for a five gallon batch and a can of frozen Apple juice concentrate for the fermentable sugar to carbonate.

If you want to use natural ingredients and no artificial sweeteners then you have a more involved task. You would add sweetener to your batch little by little and then taste periodically. Once it is.to.your desired sweetness, you would then add priming sugar (corn sugar, frozen concentrate, Brown sugar, table sugar) for enough to carbonate. Then bottle. Once carbonation is at your preferred level, you pasteurize the bottles and you're done.

If you go with route two, I highly recommend reading every post in pappers sticky in this forum.

If you are new to cider and want to finish your product for drinking with little involvement I would recommend going with option #1
 
divi2323 said:
The end product that you're going for is what will determine your method.
If you go with route two, I highly recommend reading every post in pappers sticky in this forum.

If you are new to cider and want to finish your product for drinking with little involvement I would recommend going with option #1

After 15 years of brewing, I had my 2nd ever exploding bottle while waiting for my back sweetened cider to carb up before pasteurizing. It's not rocket science, but does require attention. In hindsight I would either go for option one or not back sweeten at all. In fact, I think my cider is better when dry as a bone.

Jeff
 
well there is a nother method wich is a little differnt that i do, i like my cider sweet and really highly carbonated, so i will add a like 2 cans of apple concentrate to 5 gallons of cider and then keg i force carb it then after bottle it then pasteurizing, by doing it this way i get to get to my level of carbonation fast and dont have to risk of the yeast eating up all the sugar and making it dry again
 

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