maybe bottle now, pasturize tomorrow?

So I have always made dry, still ciders. That's what actually got me into brewing beer.

I went to pull a sample of the cider I have going for my wife. She never liked what I made but a local company has released a live cider that she loves. Its similar to Angry Orchard.

The reading came out to 1.035. I went ahead and tasted the sample after the reading and I think its almost exactly what she's looking for as it sits. Is there any reason to not bottle it now?

I never took an OG, but I made it with a gallon of martinellis apple juice, nothing added other than about a tablespoon of WY 1084.

jdp said:

So I have always made dry, still ciders. That's what actually got me into brewing beer.

I went to pull a sample of the cider I have going for my wife. She never liked what I made but a local company has released a live cider that she loves. Its similar to Angry Orchard.

The reading came out to 1.035. I went ahead and tasted the sample after the reading and I think its almost exactly what she's looking for as it sits. Is there any reason to not bottle it now?

I never took an OG, but I made it with a gallon of martinellis apple juice, nothing added other than about a tablespoon of WY 1084.

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Seems like you have answered your own question. You are looking for a sweet still cider and that appears to be what you got now. If you are happy with it at this sweet level there is no reason not to. Sounds like a low ABV sweet flat beverage. Not to my tastes but each to their own.

Bottle it and pasteurize it pronto to prevent dangerous exploding bottles.

Well, not quite. If I bottle tonight, then pasteurize tomorrow, I should have a carbed sweet cider. Will 8 hours be too long to sit before pasteurization?

Currently the cider has some carbonation, just from sitting in the fermenter. I would like to avoid bottle bombs though!

jdp said:

Well, not quite. If I bottle tonight, then pasteurize tomorrow, I should have a carbed sweet cider. Will 8 hours be too long to sit before pasteurization?

Currently the cider has some carbonation, just from sitting in the fermenter. I would like to avoid bottle bombs though!

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8 hours of fermentation in sealed glass bottles with the gravity at 1.035 sounds incredibly dangerous. Not something I would try. i will defer to your s and other more knowledgeable judgement here.

I wouldn't want a cider at that low ABV with that level of sweetness so I am not really in a position to offer any further advice.

If it were me I'd let it ferment out dry. Stabilize and sweeten to taste

That's the thing, my wife really doesn't need higher avb. Or like it for that matter... Maybe I'll just give it a few hours. Before I pasteurize and work from there...

Well, she just tasted it and wants it bottled now so that's what I'm going to do. I'll wait a few hours and see how its carbing (swingtop bottles) and if its good, I'll pasteurize it tonight.

She says its an exact clone of Redd's (its not), but if she's happy, I'm happy.


Now I have to decide if now is the time to go for the conical, or wait a few weeks until she has a few glasses of it down before I bring it up...

So I think my FG was off because the bubbles from the active fermentation. I think they pushed the hydrometer higher than it would have been otherwise.

Going by my own scale, I think I hit an AVB of about 8% because my wife had about 2 ounces and promptly fell asleep. On the spouse scale, that usually works out to 8-10%.

I pasteurized last night, then cold crashed after the bottles cooled. Its exactly what she was looking for. She's happy, I'm happy. Any stronger and a gallon would last years.

With apple juice alone fermented completely dry you are not going to get that high an ABV. 6.5% approx would be closer to the mark at SG of 1.000

If you have stopped it when it's sweet at 1.035 it would be very low ABV <2%,at 1.020 would be 3.9% 1.010 would be 5.2%

These are just rough number assuming an OG of 1.050 w/ most store apple juice.

Might be worth calibrating the wife.

I'd rather not... She's a pretty cheap date.

I still think the 1.035 is a false reading. I won't fathom a guess what the correct number is, but with active carbonation making bubbles and sticking to the hydrometer, it had to be getting thrown off.

Either way, she'll get liquored up, but not passed out. Its a win-win. It is pretty tasty too.

When I bottle carb sweet cider (my wife also likes about 3%), I use one plastic bottle and squeeze it every few hours. Doesn't take long to carb. Then, since I still get nervous about bombs, I pasteurize by running them all thru the dish washer.

I wish I could use a dishwasher. My house isn't exactly set up for it. We're missing that whole 'electricity thing. Makes temperature control pretty rough too

jdp said:

I wish I could use a dishwasher. My house isn't exactly set up for it. We're missing that whole 'electricity thing. Makes temperature control pretty rough too

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How do you post on an Internet forum without electricity?

Cell phone. Its our only internet too. We start Genny when we need to, but try to avoid it. We have a few solar panels and a battery backup but have to be pretty miserly with what we are using. Not ideal, but it works for us.

Well, after I bottled, I made another batch. This time with tree-top concentrate. I just repitched some cleaned up yeast from the first batch. OG was 1.070. After 4 days, fermentation had stopped at 1.030 and the flavor profile was near identical. Unfortunately, this batch won't carb up like my wife would have preferred, but she still likes it. My calcs put the AVB at around 5.25%. the yeast strain is supposed to work up to around 12% but two batches in a row stopping just over 5 has me curious if maybe the ale yeast doesn't tolerate as high an avb in Cider...

The first batch was about done when I bottled, but I didn't let it finish completely. when I do another in a week or two, I will let it finish completely and see if there is a change. Hopefully there isn't, She really likes the way my first two turned out.