Sweetening cider-how much sugar?

Just curious what the general ratio is for sweetening cider. Here's where I'm at so far:

Fermented one gallon unfiltered cider with Belle Saison yeast. After a week, I added 12 grams of dried ginger and a pack of FAJC. This restarted fermentation. It fermented dry in one week, I tasted it and there's a nice bite of ginger but not too much. Just right. Racked off the lees and into another 1 gallon jug. I'm left with about 3/4 gallon cleared cider.

Here's the plan going forward: I want to treat with K-Meta and K-Sorbate, then sweeten. I realize this is all based on personal preference, and am wondering, in general, how much sugar should I add per gallon to get a nice semi-sweet cider? I don't want it cloyingly sweet, but just semi sweet.

I think I'll add another pack of FAJC in order to bring the total volume back to 1 gallon and realize that'll add ~25 grams of sugar.

Any input is much appreciated.

DH

EDIT: when I added the ginger and FAJC, I also added fresh squeezed raspberry juice. Not vital to know in answering my question, but you might want to know this is a raspberry ginger cider. [emoji28]

Last edit, promise: adding the FAJC will add 150 grams sugar, not 25. Swear I'm not drunk. Thanks for your help.

It's hard to say, as it really is personal preference.

One thing you can do (although it's hard with only one gallon) is to take out a sample and add simple syrup (or AJ concentrate) until you love it. Then, take the SG of the sample and sweeten the whole batch to that level, or just under that level. It seems to get sweeter in the bottle, at least slightly.

What I mean is if you love it at 1.010, sweeten the whole batch to 1.008.

I have NO sweet tooth at all, and like mine dry. Others like theirs sweet like a dessert wine, with everybody else in between.

Alternatively you could do as I plan and add fresh juice to the glass at the time you drink it. That way you can sweeten it to anyones taste.

Fossil said:

Alternatively you could do as I plan and add fresh juice to the glass at the time you drink it. That way you can sweeten it to anyones taste.

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Yeah; I'm going to bottle this. It's just a gallon batch. I'm still trying to figure out roughly how much sugar would be appropriate for a gallon of cider. I know it's all subjective and depends on your preference, but just looking for a general starting point. The more I read, it seems like a can of FAJC in a gallon of cider will be crazy sweet, which isn't what I'm looking for.

I'm not too sure about how much sugar to add; I second Yooper's idea. But when I make cider I ferment half the volume I intend to make. I add enough sugar to hit 11% or 12% and once fermentation is complete I K-meta and K-sorbate to stabilize. And then I add the other half of the volume, keg, carbonate and enjoy. I usually make 10 gallons and its not very hard to get rid of once people find out I have it.

I added K-meta and k-sorbate last night. Once it sits for a few days I'm going to add enough volume of FAJC to get it back to a gallon, then let it sit another few days to ensure it doesn't re-ferment, then bottle. If it's entirely too sweet for any rational human being, it'll be almost sweet enough for my fiancé.

bschot said:

I'm not too sure about how much sugar to add; I second Yooper's idea. But when I make cider I ferment half the volume I intend to make. I add enough sugar to hit 11% or 12% and once fermentation is complete I K-meta and K-sorbate to stabilize. And then I add the other half of the volume, keg, carbonate and enjoy. I usually make 10 gallons and its not very hard to get rid of once people find out I have it.

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Forgot to quote this; see above.

Rule of thumb is that 4 oz of sugar added to one gallon of liquid will raise the gravity by 10 points, so if your cider is at 1.000 and you add 4 oz (or about 110 gms) of sugar after stabilizing the cider will have a density of 1.010. That is fairly sweet. So you can experiment - bench test - by pouring two or three known identical volumes of cider and adding specific quantities of sugar and then taste each glass to see which you prefer - (say 2 oz glasses)
When you have determined which glass you prefer and you know how much sugar you had added you simply multiply the amount of sugar by 64 for the total quantity of sugar you want to add. Alternatively you could simply dissolve 1 oz of sugar in the gallon and taste it. If it is not sweet enough dissolve another ounce. If still not sweet enough dissolve a third ounce...

bernardsmith said:

Rule of thumb is that 4 oz of sugar added to one gallon of liquid will raise the gravity by 10 points, so if your cider is at 1.000 and you add 4 oz (or about 110 gms) of sugar after stabilizing the cider will have a density of 1.010. That is fairly sweet. So you can experiment - bench test - by pouring two or three known identical volumes of cider and adding specific quantities of sugar and then taste each glass to see which you prefer - (say 2 oz glasses)
When you have determined which glass you prefer and you know how much sugar you had added you simply multiply the amount of sugar by 64 for the total quantity of sugar you want to add. Alternatively you could simply dissolve 1 oz of sugar in the gallon and taste it. If it is not sweet enough dissolve another ounce. If still not sweet enough dissolve a third ounce...

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Thanks. The 4oz/gal at least gives me a general starting point from which to base my sweetening. I'll probably take whatever amount of FAJC that'll give me roughly 110 grams of sugar, dissolve that in whatever quantity of filtered, boiled water I need to get my total cider volume back to one gallon, let it sit for a few days and if I don't see re-fermenting happening I'll bottle. Appreciate the input.

I do mine by SG at bottling time. Typically I bring it up to 1.010 - 1.012 with FAJC, adding it in 1/4 cup increments. Phug has a thread about the SG of commercial ciders, and IIRC they range from like 1.012 to 1.030.

So after two and a half days of letting the K-Meta and K-Sorbate do their thing, I added 100 grams of sugar via FAJC to sweeten. I did notice there was essentially no more sediment on the bottom of the jug. Shouldn't there have been a good heavy layer of lees if the K-Meta and K-Sorbate worked?

Dhelderman said:

So after two and a half days of letting the K-Meta and K-Sorbate do their thing, I added 100 grams of sugar via FAJC to sweeten. I did notice there was essentially no more sediment on the bottom of the jug. Shouldn't there have been a good heavy layer of lees if the K-Meta and K-Sorbate worked?

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No. If k-meta and sorbate were added at the appropriate time, there would be no lees at all.

Yooper said:

No. If k-meta and sorbate were added at the appropriate time, there would be no lees at all.

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Great. Success! I must've followed your instructions found in another thread correctly then. Thanks, Yooper.