How do the commercial breweries do it?

Forgive me if these are repeat questions, if they are feel free to link to where it is. I did about 7 hours of researching and found no concise answer.

How do companies like angry orchard or woodchuck end up with a gravity of around 1.020 to 1.030?

Do they start at a gravity around 1.068 and force stop the fermentation at the target gravity of 1.030? If they do how do they stop the fermentation? Is it stopped with a bunch of sulfite and sorbate, filtering, cold crashing or simply picking a yeast that will stop at 5% alcohol?

Or

Do they start at around the gravity of 1.050 and let it ferment completely dry and then back sweeten to 1.030? Of they do it this way then why do it this way vs the above method, since it would cost more money to back sweeten.


Thanks for your time and help! I hope one of you can answer my questions

I assume lots of them are fermenting dry, and stabilizing with sorbates/sulfites and then sweetening them.
I say this based on the number of ciders that have an ingredients list that reads something along the lines of : apple juice, apple juice concentrate, natural and artificial flavours, (may contain sulphites)

Why would it cost more to backsweeten? They have a target for ABV and a target for sweetness, and assuming they're using juice or concentrate to hit both, it would cost the same amount either way.

Also, I'd assume that the big commercial ciders are all pasteurizing and force carbonating, so they would t necessarily need to chemically stabilize (although they probably do for shelf life).

ong said:

Also, I'd assume that the big commercial ciders are all pasteurizing and force carbonating, so they would t necessarily need to chemically stabilize (although they probably do for shelf life).

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Now when they "pasteurize " they are stopping the fermentation before it goes dry right?

haltwolf said:

Now when they "pasteurize " they are stopping the fermentation before it goes dry right?

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Theyre heating it, probably to 170F for a very brief amount of time. There's different ways of pasteurizing at different temperatures for different amount of times. 170F you only need to keep it there for a short amount of time, theres more gentle temps that you keep it at that lower temp for a longer amount of time. It's basically killing all (well, 99.9999%) the yeast and bacteria that could continue to ferment the sugars. Wether or not its to stop it from going dry is up to the brewery, its easier to just let the batch go as low as its going to go, pasteurize, then back sweeten so you have a level of quality control on what the batch tastes like.

Some breweries use pasteurization on their beer to increase shelf stability so its not always to stop something from going completely dry. You wouldn't want to try and stop it at the perfect sweetness, then pasteurize, as the flavor always changes after pasteurization, start with a blank dry cider thats been pasteurized and then sweeten it from that point.

They probably pasteurize, filter and force carb. idk if they back sweeten or just stop fermentation when it hits the desired FG.

my method is to ferment til about 1.014 then filter the yeast with a .5 micron filter and back sweeten with AJC, force carb in a keg then bottle with my beer gun.

I suspect many commercial cideries filter their cider so all the yeast is removed without any significant use of energy to heat hundreds of gallons of cider.

Given that heat chases off aromatics and can bitter fruits, I 100% agree with bernardsmith.
Given how sweet commercial ciders are- almost painfully sweet- I'm convinced they have to back sweeten.

When I became a cider maker ten years after being a home brewer, I couldn't understand why people didn't like my cider. When I started buying commercial ciders, even the driest cider was sweet compared to what I was making. I typically split my batches and keep a dry for myself and sweet for guests. Now everyone is happy.

bernardsmith said:

I suspect many commercial cideries filter their cider so all the yeast is removed without any significant use of energy to heat hundreds of gallons of cider.

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Edit: I am a moron.

Would filtering really take out any/all of the bacteria/yeast that could remain behind that could cause problems?

There are two main ways commercial cideries end up with sweet products.

The first is to take an apple base (concentrate or juice) and chapetalize it to 10%-15% ABV before fermenting dry. This dry cider is then filtered and blended with filtered yet unfermented apple juice. The whole thing is stabilized with sulfites and sorbate, then force carbonated.

Alternatively, the starting cider is chapetalized to a point which allows the fermentation to be arrested at the desired ABV and sweetness. This is done by cold crashing the cider, filtering, stabilizing with sulfites and sorbate, then carbonating.

Alternatively, pasteurization can be used in place of sorbate to stabilize the cider, either with or without sulfites. Velcorin is also an option. Sulfites and sorbate are by for the most common among the national brands though.

Filtering can remove all live cells if passed through an 'absolute' 0.45 micron filter.

ArkotRamathorn said:

Would filtering really take out any/all of the bacteria/yeast that could remain behind that could cause problems?

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Yeah... Even home wine makers can buy filters that filter out particles smaller than a yeast cell. (So-called sterile filters filter at .45 microns and will remove bacteria, although filters with 2 micron sized pores are tight enough to hold back yeast) - Your cider needs to be bright /clear, of course, to use such filters -

https://winemakermag.com/1348-filtration-wine-wizard

http://morewinemaking.com/category/filtering-wine.html

Of course, filtration also filters color and other particles that may be preferred so you weigh the costs and the benefits...

It's not that big a deal to use chemicals.
I keg just about everything I make, so I avoid them because my kegs don't need them. I was helping a neighbor with his first cider and I suggested sulfites so I could show him how to back sweeten and make his cider palatable for his wife.
If I'm back sweetening or long term bottling you need some chemicals to prevent spoilage and 2ndary fermentations.
IMO, this is better than heat, which again dissipates aromatics and introduces bitterness.

ArkotRamathorn said:

Edit: I am a moron.

Would filtering really take out any/all of the bacteria/yeast that could remain behind that could cause problems?

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Yeast are 10 microns

haltwolf said:

Yeast are 10 microns

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You learn something new every day!

Presumably, could you use the same .45 micron filters on a sour beer so you could pitch fresh regular yeast into it to carbonate it? Since sours can take so long to carbonate it just an interesting an idea to take out the vast majority of the bacteria/yeast and pitching some fresh yeast to carbonate in the bottles.

I guess I don't know the answer to your question , ArkoRamathorn. Vintners who filter are filtering a bright/clear wine. You cannot filter a wine that has any particulates without clogging your system. I am not sure how bright and clear beer is or how clear lambics are when brewed at home which may be the reason why folk on this site talk about pasteurization and folk on wine making sites treat that as a four letter word.