Backsweetening with juice

[ramthebuffs]

I've looked around the forum and didn't really see what I was looking for. I've got about 5.25gal in the carboy right now and I saved about 0.75g for backsweetening. My plan is to pasteurize the bottles when I feel the taste is just about right and/or the bottles shouldn't take any more pressure. I added a couple of pounds of sugar to the ferment using montrachet yeast. I believe I remember reading a while back that this conditions the yeast to go for the raw sugar and not more naturally occurring sugar like whats in the juice?

I'm just asking your opinions on how I should go about doing this? I reckon +-2.0 carbonation would be fine, and I realize this is going to be very inexact. I'll be birdoggin' the bottles to make sure of no disasters. I don't know exactly how sweet I want the cider, I just know I'm sick of drinking cider that makes my jaws hurt cos its so tart. Should I use just the juice? Juice + sugar? It'll be about 2.5-3+ weeks in the carboy when I go to rack (as long as my FG is where it should be). Should I be worried about the yeast not wanting to "perk up"? I'd rather not use sweeteners/lactose etc unless its the only way.

Thanks in advance for any ideas on how to not mess this up.

 

[JimRausch]

Adding sugar to "condition" the yeast sounds like a lot of bupkis to me. The yeast will eat sucrose presented as table sugar the same as they'll eat sucrose and fructose presented in the juice.
So, whether you just add your reserved juice, or that plus sugar is up to you, and depends on how sweet you want it. Of course the problem with the juice is you have no idea how much sugar is in it.
My 2 previous batches carbonation: 1. 2 years ago straight cider, I added two cans of frozen apple juice concentrate- dried out completely and overcarbonated. The apple flavor came back after about 1 year. 2. Last year a graf carbonated with 1 can, pasteurized after 4 days- retained alittle sweetness, mildy carbonated. Could probably have gone 6 days before pasteurizing.
Keep reading the rest of the threads on this part of the forum- there's a lot of good info. on backsweetening and pasteurizing.

 

[ramthebuffs]

I've been cipher'n on this some more. 0.75gal of juice would be like 1.5oz per beer which doesn't really sound that unreasonable. Then maybe prime to 1.50 vols or so and make sure to hit the brakes on time.