I need help with getting a carbonated cider

Hello all,

I have posted before, and want to thank everyone for their timely answers on my last thread.

I am on my 2nd round of cider.

I followed https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f32/sammys-simple-cider-203224/ this recipe exactly, and just cold crashed to stop the yeast.

Simple. Easy. But not carbed.

I want a carbed cider this time.

Would I be able to:
Cold crash (to get most of the yeast to fall down), rack off yeast, mix in priming solution, and then just let the little yeast do its thing?

Unless you have a way to force carb I would say the only way is to prime the brew for bottling but cold crashing would kill the majority of your yeast or at least put them asleep and they would fall to the bottom. If you rack the solution and leave the yeast you could not bottle carbonate/condition since there would be no yeast. I think forced carbonation is the only way if you cold crashed.

Yeah that's the problem I kept running into in my head.

Dang....

simply dont cold crash. Let it ferment all the way out, then back sweeten with splenda to taste; as its not a sugar, so it wont ferment out. Then, prime and bottle as you normally would and it will carb like normal.

you can add yeast back in at bottling time. 1g of dry yeast should do the trick for 5 gallons.

rodneypierce said:

simply dont cold crash. Let it ferment all the way out, then back sweeten with splenda to taste; as its not a sugar, so it wont ferment out. Then, prime and bottle as you normally would and it will carb like normal.

Click to expand...

Well duh......


Thank you!

bhambrewer said:

Well duh......


Thank you!

Click to expand...

no problem my friend.

Ferment dry, add priming sugar (I use 1 cup of apple juice per gallon), and bottle.

Cold crashing does NOT kill yeast. It puts it in a dormant state and a lot of it will drop to the bottom, but there will still be millions of yeast cells in suspension that will wake back up when brought back to temperature. Beer brewers regularly cold crash beer (to drop proteins and other haze forming compounds) and then bottle carb without adding any new yeast.

Yep, lagers are done this way all the time.
I have found through multiple batches that cider will take longer to carb up than beer will for some reason. Give it a full two weeks if not three.
One thing I like to do is to bottle before it is totally finished but still add in the priming sugar also. You have to keep an eye on the bottles and open one every few days to check on the carb level and then get them all in the fridge when you find they are where you want them to be. Just be careful of bottle bombs when using this method.
You can get the cider to sparkle like crazy this way.