Cider not sweet.... Any help?

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BadgerBrigade

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I just did my first batch... I just bottled, added priming sugar in the form of carbonation drops and cracked one last night to check the carbonation level... Not sweet? I used off-the-shelf treetop apple juice, one small can of pineapple juice, and some cinnamon and nutmeg as the recipe called for... It tasted kind of sweet when I racked it the second time but now it's kind of losing that... What I did was I let it ferment for six weeks in the carboy, then into another carboy for a week and a half... The reason I didn't let it sit longer was because I had quite a bit of headspace and it appeared to have completely finished fermentation so I don't think there was any good blanket of CO2 on top... I put carbonation drops in my bottles instead of doing priming sugar and I cracked one a couple of days after just to check the carbonation... Is this why people back Sweeten? And could you back sweetened with pear juice? I really want to make a pear cider or "peary" but the fresh no preservative juice is really really expensive at my store here... Should I try to find information on back sweetening in this forum or is there a way to naturally sweetened with the flavors of what you're working with already?
 
Pull up the thread, many people sweeten it with different sweeteners. In the future, IMOP, I would let it sit for awhile. I've done 2 batches, and to be honest it doesn't start to get good until about 5-6 months. I just racked a bacth to a keg last week, it sat in the carboy for 3 months and I won't touch it for at least another 4-5 months. I don't back sweeten mine at all.
 
back sweeten with splenda or other fake sugar. other wise it will just ferment out.

you could back sweeten with a juice or concentrate although you wil have to kill the yeast with pasterization.
 
Captainfester said:
back sweeten with splenda or other fake sugar. other wise it will just ferment out.

you could back sweeten with a juice or concentrate although you wil have to kill the yeast with pasterization.

I'm gonna use a juice concentrate on mine to prime. Will putting in fridge stop the yeast also or is pasteurization a must.
 
back sweeten with splenda or other fake sugar. other wise it will just ferment out.

you could back sweeten with a juice or concentrate although you wil have to kill the yeast with pasterization.

I'm really hoping you didn't follow this guy's advice. Artificial sweeteners? Yuck!

All you need to do if you're going to backsweeten is use a bit of potassium sorbate to inhibit the yeast and then backsweeten. If you want sparkling cider, however you'll need to force carb with co2 in a keg afterward. If you don't care about carbonation the you'll be all set. Your idea about backsweetening with juice or concentrate is spot on.

Also in the future if you want to retain a little sweetness in your ciders try using an ale yeast instead of a cider or champagne yeast. I've had good results with those.
 
Hey everyone-- I am thinking of trying to use 2 cans of AJC to my 5-gallons of apple-blackberry cider, bottle right away, and then pasteurize once my plastic test bottle is firm. Does anyone have any experience doing something like this? Will it leave enough sweetness to make it worth it, or will it just make the ABV skyrocket and leave the same super-dry flavor?
 
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