Sweeten cider

So I am about a week into my batch of cider and I just took a gravity reading and it's at about 1.001. I gave the sample a taste and it's pretty dry as I expected. I'm planning to prime it and make it sparkling when I bottle (which is a ways off) but my question is: if I want to sweeten it can I do that before I bottle, or will adding enough sugar to sweeten it just make bottle bombs? Should I just wait and sweeten it when it's served?

One word: Lactose

david_42 said:

One word: Lactose

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That's not a bad idea, thanks David. The only thing is I don't want to affect the tartness from the residual acids with a base. I've never used lactose and all I know is that it's sugar from milk, and it's non-fermentable, but does it have a base quality due to where it's derived from?

Another option is splenda. I did a test of it and found it hurts my stomach, though my roommates love the stuff.

Some people kill the yeast and then sweeten, this leads to a flat cider. I've heard of some people then adding sprite. The other way is to bottle as is and add some apple juice at serving time.

If you keg you can always kill off the yeast and sweeten with anything and then force carbonate.

If you try lactose I'd be interested to hear how much you used and the effect on the cider.

I lile to carbonate mine with frozen concentrate. It sweetens it nice!! I use about 3/4 of a can before I bottle it. I always use one champagne bottle with a replacable spring-loaded cap. A lot of wine stores have them. Then I can test it in 2 to 3 weeks to see if the carbonation is right. When I get it where I want it I just put all of the bottles in the fridge to stop the yeast from growing. Cidar can loose alot of its flavor in fermentation so the concetrate adds it back and gives it enough sugar to carbonate. I have also used different juices to change the flavor. Blueberry and cranberry are my favorite.

I recommend against lactose, unless you want your friends to spend all night on the crapper because they're lactose intolerant....

Splenda is a nice route, but I am personally bothered by the taste.

I really recommend mixing with apple juice (or simple syrup) at the time of serving. It's great, and it allows people to customize how sweet they want it to be.

Apple Juice Concentrate should work to sweeten it.

Thanks for all the feedback. I might just leave it dry. I like it dry personally but I was thinking about other peoples tastes that I will be sharing it with. I'll just make some simple syrup and keep it handy when I serve it in case anyone likes it sweeter.

I have been using stevia as a sweetener in a few later batches; adding a little in the whole batch before bottling after secondary. I have also addeda a couple of drops before serving. There seems to be a taste, but not unlpeasant to me like artificial sweetener. I i am curious to know if stevia will degrade or not after 6 months in the bottle.