Back Sweetening Cider with Store Bought Cider Mix

Hey all,

I have a cider (brewed 04-08-11) that I am planning on back sweetening soon. It has been cold crashed for about 3 weeks now @ 35 degrees. I was originally planning on to FCAJ, cinn sticks, and some maple syrup.

I opened the pantry today and saw the SWMBO had bought some packets of the ready mix hot apple cider stuff. Has anyone tried this?? I seems that maybe this, or a combination of this with other things, may provide just the spice level / sweetness that is needed. Any info is appreciated!

Also, for backsweetening - I am planning on kegging and keeping it cold, but I also want to bottle some. Should I use campden and sorbate? I heard that you could taste sorbate...

Thanks,
Ryan

bump...

I wouldn't do it. That cider stuff is about 95% artificial and I am sure would not taste as good as back sweeting with something much better like apple concentrate.

Thanks. Thats what I was thinkin about too. Oh well.

My recent experience went like this with a 23 litre Blackrock Cider can made from New Zealand grown apples:
Bugger the SG, the ferment (which had been a bit slow) was clearly nearly at an end. Tasted out of the fermentor: not bad, some sweetness, the wife does not want it any drier.
Decide to wait a day or two until I see some clearing at least part way down the fermentor. The intention is to go straight into a keg & refridgerate at 2 to 4 DegC.
We do that but the wife says half way through the siphoning: "I'd like it a bit sweeter".
Fair enough, I add 1.5 litres of supermarket bought (no preservative) apple juice to the keg & top to 19 litres.
After forced carbonation & only about 10 days aging, we sample:
It's OK, no weird or off flavours, a wee bit hazy still, a clean finish, some apple flavours, but its watery (my wife's description with which I agree), the sweetness is about dead right, best described as on the dry side of medium.
So backsweetening with apple juice works & is straightforward. I don't know if the juice was pasteurised but suggest there was not sufficient used to spoil any flavour; it's sometimes said that pasteurised juice results in an inferior taste.
I followed the kit recipe which called for 1 Kg of cane sugar - except I used 1/3 KG dextrose & 2/3 Kg of dark brown sugar instead.
Obviously the low temp at which I hold my kegs has stopped any further fermentation as you would expect.
What I'd really like to know is how next time do I get more of a taste kick, watery is definitely not good enough

Wondering, has anyone back sweetened/topped off in the secondary with any frozen juice concentrate made with water such as raspberry or blueberry? How much favor will import?

peterlonz said:

What I'd really like to know is how next time do I get more of a taste kick, watery is definitely not good enough

Click to expand...

back-sweeten with concentrate... for that matter start the fermentation with some concentrate. in other words if you are using a jug of juice, add a can of concentrate with no extra water to get more kick, both flavor and alcohol. Then you can use more concentrate to back-sweeten and still add even more apple flavor.