Firelion70 said:
Just making first cider and still a bit of a brew noob!
I know I have to kill the yeast off before drinking but should I do it before racking or after a week of racking or what?
I would like a sweet carbed cider, cheers
Do you have a kegging setup? It's really the only realistic way to kill the yeast and still be able to carbonate, otherwise you NEED the yeast in order to carbonate.
If you have a kegging system, you can heat pasteurize the cider and then sweeten before force-carbonating. You can also use a combination of K-Meta (campden tablets) and potassium sorbate. I'm not going to give specific instructions, because frankly, a search will find you a ton of info, and I don't even know if you have the ability to force-carbonate.
If you don't have a kegging setup, you can still use either of the two methods above, but you will have to be okay with still cider (uncarbonated). The other option is to just leave the yeast alone and use some sort sweetener. Sucralose (Splenda) is the most popular these days, and stevia (Truvia, PureVia) is also very common. There are also a ton of other options as well, including aspartame, acesulfame potassium (Ace-K), neotame, saccharin, sorbitol, mannitol, xylitol, glycerol (NOT glycol!), and even lactose... but, although these are just a small fraction of the sweetening products available, thls is probably representative of 99.999% of all beverages sweetened with an unfermentable sugar substitute, and you'd be extremely hard-pressed to ever run into beverages using anything else. Personally, after a ton of research into the health effects of calorie-free (as in negligibly caloric) sweeteners (combined with reasons of taste and body), I'd stick to sucralose, neotame, and possibly Ace-K, which, in combination with sucralose, tastes much more like real sugar.
If you're really adventurous and want to try the most traditional sweetener, try and get a hold of lead acetate. But good luck with that! Governments stopped allowing its use ages ago, when they discovered the amazing healing powers of lead. The conspiracy theorists obviously got this one right - you know, with the government outlawing the curing of diseases with any natural product because it can't be patented!
I'm just not sure if the yeast could survive being poiso- errrrr, being so happy that they could literally burst with joy.