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vekzero

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Hey I have some quick questions. This week I am planning on bottling my 5 gallons of cider. I based my recipe off the Ed Wort's Apfelwein recipe, but instead of 2lbs of dextrose I used brown sugar & us 05 yeast. Also added a little cinnamon.

I wondering how back sweetening works. I made a test batch & it came out dry. For this one I plan on back sweetening it a little and carbing it.

How would I go about doing this? I'm still pretty new to homebrewing & I don't want bottle bombs.
 
I do the add sugar and bottle carb method. Seems to work fine. Now I'm wondering if the secondary sits a longer time will the yeast still be active enough to carbonate? Also, if I rack a couple times to get it clearer will that eliminate too much yeast to carbonate?
 
Now I'm wondering if the secondary sits a longer time will the yeast still be active enough to carbonate? Also, if I rack a couple times to get it clearer will that eliminate too much yeast to carbonate?
There will always be the ability to carb if you have not stabilized, pasteurized or cold crashed, and even cold crashing doesn't always get rid of it all.

I know a guy.... OK I will admit it, it was me and I had started a wine making project with my brother. We had access to tons of fresh fruit and had started over 50 gallons all in 1 and 2 gallon batches. This was about 10 years ago. well life happened and one day added to the next and before we new it 10 years had passed and when I bottled my 10 year old wine I never thought to check the SG because I figured after 10 years the yeast was either dead or or it had fermented out all the sugar. low and behold one of the original gallons had stick probably 9.5 years ago and bottling it was just what I needed to restart the fermentation process. so I guess yeast knows no time limit. After doing some research I found yeast can lie dormant for 1000s of years. tough little bugger to kill.
 
Back to the original post, read the sticky about bottle pasteurizing by Pappers. I know it's 30 some odd pages in length, but take an afternoon and read EVERYTHING in it. It'll give you absolutely everything you need to do to prevent bottle bombs while you're on your quest for the elusive sweet and sparkling cider.

In a nutshell you can get sweet sparking cider a couple of ways:

1. ferment your cider to complete dryness. sweeten it with a non fermentable (I used stevia in a batch of mine and it came out great), then add a specific amount of fermentable sugar back into the mixture (usually a cup or less for a 5 gallon batch). stir it well and bottle it up. after a week or so your cider will be sweet and carbonated. (I made a batch where I primed my 5 gallon batch with a can of frozen apple juice concentrate, it was also awesome)

2. ferment your cider to complete dryness. then backsweeten with a fermentable sweetener to your liking. once you like it, add a cup of sugar to a 5 gallon batch, and then bottle it. Once carbonation is right (you have to open a bottle a day to check it), then you pasteurize the batch in the sealed bottles and it's good to go. (THIS IS PAPPERS METHOD, READ HIS POST IN ENTIRETY BEFORE ACTING)

I'm sure there are other methods but bottle conditioning (option #1) and pasteurizing (option #2) are your most popular methods.

I cant stress enough how important and valuable reading pappers' sticky in this forum has been to me and to anyone that reads it. Even if you're not pasteurizing your bottles, it's got great information about the cidermaking process.

Good luck.
 
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