Apfelwein Woes

[TheMattTrain]

I made a mistake. I let my wife pick out my juices for my latest batch of Apfelwein. It's been fermenting for over 3 months, I kegged it last night, and it's terrible.

So my wife wanted me to make a cranberry apfelwein but the cranberry juice she got was the "100% all natural Cranberry" variety. Which, if you've ever tried to drink a glass, is very bitter and tart. I used 1/2 gallon of this cranberry juice with 4.5 gallons of apple juice. The end result is a very dry, tart, apfelwein. I'm considering back sweetening with some sort of artificial sugar substitute, but I'd really prefer to stay with something natural like honey.

The question I have is this... since I keg, my keg is always in the refrigerator. If I back sweeten with honey without using anything to kill off the yeast, will the remaining yeast in the keg eat through the honey and increase the alcohol over time or is it too cold for them to do any real damage? I imagine this keg will last us 4-5 weeks at least. (I'm also considering pulling some of the batch out and just adding cranberry juice cocktail to sweeten/flavor it more)

 

[porterpounder]

The cranberry cocktail would work better as it is usually sorbated. Even at fridge temps you run the risk of at least some continuing fermentation with sugar addition and no yeast inhibitor. Although after 3 months there probably is not a lot of viable yeast left in suspension.

 

[ryansanders]

Agree with porterpounder, but at this point if you're trying to salvage this brew, might as well put in the extra effort and pasturize it before sweetening. No point in getting your hopes up again if it's not garunteed to go your way. Pasturize that puppy!


www.betterbeerkits.com

 

[TheMattTrain]

Thanks for the responses so far.

I've never done any pasteurizing and I'm trying to avoid doing that. I'd have to remove it from the keg to do that, correct?

I'm hoping to do a few samples this weekened/early next week with different sweeteners. If I just add cranberry juice cocktail, I'm pretty confident that won't ferment, but even if I do that and a little honey, if the alcohol percentage slowly rises, I'm not going to be upset as long as the flavor doesn't go back to the gross tartness that it had been previously.

I think next time I try a cranberry version of this I'll just ferment 4 gallons of apfelwein and add a gallon of unfermentable cranberry juice to the keg.

 

[myndflyte]

You could add some potassium sorbate. Just throw that in the keg and then back sweeten.