A friend who does beer brewing said there might be concern about production over time if left to sit of esters, I think it was...? (Might be wrong about the chemical.) Does that only affect beers?
Sitting on the lees for very long times can cause autolysis of the yeast I believe, which can cause a bunch of off flavors. Nothing that is dangerous though I don't think.
Thank you!!
So if I wanted to add a little sweetness, but also carbonate, could I transfer off lees to minimize yeast in the final bottled product, add some fresh juice or corn sugar, let it go just until I see some action for an hour or so(?), then put it in the fridge (or briefly in the freezer first) to crash the yeast & leave it there until drinking? I hate to use things like sorbate (I can usually taste all artificial sweeteners, so I'm guessing maybe this might taste a bit like sorbitol?), but think it may end up being too dry as-is, and I also am not a huge fan of flat ciders. Would prefer to avoid complicated pasteurization. Or is there a way to add carbonation tabs maybe when bottling, after stopping the yeast with sulfate (or sorbate if absolutely necessary)? I thought I read something about carbonation tabs 3 years ago...but don't think at that time I was considering potentially having to completely stop the yeast due to being too dry.
LOL I suppose if I wanted to drink it all soon I could press & refrigerate some fresh juice & just combine it with the sparkling dry cider before serving, after having tested proportions!
Refrigerating will greatly slow but not stop the yeast. If you drink it fast enough that would work. I'm not sure you will see activity in a bottle that's carbing, but I've never watched any of the few bottles I've bottle carbed. A better way is to bottle one bottle in a plastic container like a plastic soda container. Squeeze the container to determine how carbonated it is. This is the same as is done for pasteurization too (except when the bottle is hard the glass bottles are pasteurized, not refrigerated).
Another option I forgot about is simply fermenting dry, adding sugar at bottling to carb, then when drinking pour into a glass and add sugar, such as simple syrup, to taste.
Artificial sweeteners can be use. Lactose or xylitol are commonly used. I've not used any, but every mention of xylitol I've seen is that everybody says they cannot taste
any off flavors or aftertastes, unlike many other artificial sweeteners. However, it is
very poisonous to dogs.
Sorbate is short for potassium sorbate, and sulfate is short for potassium metabisulfite. These are not sweeteners. Sorbate keeps yeast from reproducing, and sulfite helps kill yeast. Sulfite also helps prevent oxidation. If you've had wine, it's almost a certainty sulfite has been added. If you've had a sweet wine, both sulfites and sorbates were added. Both are very commonly used. I use them when kegging cider if I'm sweetening it (same as you would when bottling if you sweeten it).
Carbonation tabs are simply sugar in a oversized pill. If you add sorbates and sulfates to stop the yeast, carbonation tabs will only sweeten, not carbonate.
To what pressure do you pressurise the keg for long term storage?
My kegs are pressurized to my desired volumes of CO2 based on my serving temp and kept in my kreezer. There's no specific pressure, or in fact any pressure, you'd need to leave a keg at for storage. You want to purge all the air with CO2 though.
