Back sweetening cider... my dilemma

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badmajon

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So I made some cider but it got too dry, about 1.003-1.005. I need to back sweeten it.

I was thinking of sorbating, adding table sugar, then kegging, but I don't really drink cider all that often and I only have 2 kegs in operation at the moment. I guess I could even skip the sorbating step here, because I figure if it gets cold enough, the yeast will go inactive.

What I'd really like to do is back sweeten and bottle. However, I can't imagine how to do this, if I don't sorbate and add sugar to sweeten, the bottles will explode but if I do sorbate won't that kill the yeast completely and then you can't bottle carb right?

So how do I back sweeten and bottle? :confused:
 
Carb as you would beer. Or you could just serve with some apple juice in the glass, or you could even sweeten it up to how you like it, add a little bit more for carbing and then bottle pasteurise.
 
Then wouldn't I just have sour cider? Youre talking about sweetening after each bottle is poured, which doesn't really work for me.
 
+1 for pasteurizing

Or you could bottle with lactose to sweeten... or some people use Splenda.
 
If you've got a keg, why bottle carb?
Just stop the fermentation however you like, (cold crash, sorbate, whatever), then backsweeten, carb in the keg and bottle from there.
 
+1 for pasteurizing

Or you could bottle with lactose to sweeten... or some people use Splenda.

I think these are your best two options.

If you back sweeten with a non fermentable (like lactose), you can then prime and bottle as you would a beer. The yeast will eat up the priming sugar but not the lactose. The downside is that this will add sweetness, but not apple sweetness/flavor.

Pasteurizing is a good process to use before your cider is too dry. After it's gotten too dry, you could backsweeten with some apple juice, bottle, start checking the carbonation level after a week or so, and pasteurize on the stove top to stop the yeast at the right carbonation level. There's a thread on the cider subforum on how to pasteurize, it's simple.
 
Pasteurizing is a good process to use before your cider is too dry. After it's gotten too dry, you could backsweeten with some apple juice, bottle, start checking the carbonation level after a week or so, and pasteurize on the stove top to stop the yeast at the right carbonation level. There's a thread on the cider subforum on how to pasteurize, it's simple.

I am going to do this, and that thread is great. I am going to back sweeten with some frozen concentrate, and when carb is right I am going to Pasteurize. By sweetening with AJ Concentrate, I am hoping the apple flavor really pops.
 
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