First batch of cider

Hi! I am about to start up my first batch of cider (have made 3 batches of beer previously). I am going to make a 5 gallon batch using Mott's apple juice and champagne yeast.

I want to use sugar to increase the OG so that I can get around a 6-7% ABV final product, but am not sure how much to add. Any help on a rule of thumb, or calculation would be very much appreciated!

Cheers!

p.s. I tried to play around w/ hopville beercalculus, but it indicated that my origional 40 lbs (5 gallons) of apple jiuce would give me an OG of 1.150, and each lb of brown sugar would increase by 0.009... is this possibly accurate?

I think you will be disappointed with the outcome because your using motts. I would only use fresh apple cider. That's just my opinion.

Wayneh said:

I think you will be disappointed with the outcome because your using motts. I would only use fresh apple cider. That's just my opinion.

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Meh, I have used both and there is little difference in the outcome. I do probably 20 gal a year of hard and only use fresh press for drinking (not fermented) there's a huge difference in flavor when unfermented but most of that difference goes out the airlock during fermentation.

cwendel said:

p.s. I tried to play around w/ hopville beercalculus, but it indicated that my origional 40 lbs (5 gallons) of apple jiuce would give me an OG of 1.150, and each lb of brown sugar would increase by 0.009... is this possibly accurate?

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Straight juice is about 1.050 SG, and if you finish it at 1.010 sweet you come in at about 5%. Add .5lb sugar to each gallon to kick it up 1-1.5% from that.

I just did a 5-gallon batch recently and forgot to measure my OG (I added 2 pounds of dextrose, some brown sugar, and honey). But I took some of the same apple juice I had used and measured the SG and it was somewhere around 1.048 I think. I'm not at all sure about the affect on SG of additions.

Thank you all for the advice. I had hoped to use a non concentrate cider, but couldn't find one without preservatives. I guess I will have to try it again with the fresh stuff! I measured the juice by itself, which had SG of 1.050, and added 3 cups of table sugar, bringing the OG to 1.065 for 5 gallons.

I was planning to stop fermentation with potassium sorbate at 1.010-1.014 SG to keep some sweetness. I am having trouble figuring out my process, as I would also like to bottle carbonate, and it was recommended that I secondary ferment for a few weeks.

I expect the primary fermentation will last near a week, but if I stop the yeast with pottassium sorbate at the desired FG, what is the point of the secondary fermentation? I plan to add some more yeast with the priming sugar when I bottle so the bottles will carbonate. Will the 5oz corn sugar for priming that has worked well for my beer also apply to the cider?