Cider kit and adding fresh apple cider with potassium sorbate

[Canuck137]

Hello cider team,

I am a somewhat advanced brewer, however not a pro and have only tried making cider once with apple juice and it was so so at best.

I saw a "cider kit" at my LHBS. It's a Brewmaker Premium Cider kit... It crossed my mind that it would be nice to add 2L of fresh apple cider to this kit. Apple cider is in season now where I live in Canada. So I gabbed some at the grocery store today... now after researching it I see that apple cider with potassium sorbate is a no no. The preservative binds to the yeast and prevents reproduction. Of course I check my cider and it says there is .1% of potassium sorbate in it. Thus, even though it is only 2L, I decided not to add it to my kit. I simply started the kit as one normally would, and it is bubbling away as kits do after only 1 hour.

Sorry for the preamble, here is the main question...

Can I add the cider to the fermentation pail in a week after fermentation is complete? Then maybe there will be a large abundance of yeast and a small amount of potassium sorbate? Or will it not ferment and also make my cider unable to carbonate?

Just trying to kick up the flavour of this kit. Any info would help. Cheers!

 

[ebbelwoi]

My guess is that it would be OK at that point. You could also use it for backsweetening. I always backsweeten with juice and I love the result.

 

[Maylar]

Can I add the cider to the fermentation pail in a week after fermentation is complete? Then maybe there will be a large abundance of yeast and a small amount of potassium sorbate? Or will it not ferment and also make my cider unable to carbonate?

No. The sorbate will injure your yeast, and injured yeast create off flavors that don't age out. Every single case I've seen where people have managed to ferment sorbated cider the result tasted like crap.

 

[Canuck137]

Well fair enough... it's tempting to try and kick up the flavour by adding the fresh cider but there isn't much point if it's probably going to do the opposite and make it worse. Not expecting much out of this kit to be honest. Is there anything I can add pre-bottling to kick it up a bit. I'm just aware of the mediocre-ness of kits in general. Just kinda bought this one on a whim and it's fun to try random stuff now and then haha.

Has anyone every tried a "Brewmaker Premium Cider" kit?

 

[MarkKF]

I think for a first attempt people should stay clear of kits. Just use FAJC. Add just enough water to hit your desired starting gravity and pitch wine yeast. Never fails.

 

[Maylar]

There are flavor concentrates that can be added to a finished cider if it turns out weak tasting. The one that I've used when I first started making cider is from Nature's Flavors, like this one:
https://www.naturesflavors.com/natural-flavor-concentrate/62496-apple-flavor-concentrate.html

A little goes a LONG way (like 1/4 tsp per gal), too much and you get a Jolly Rancher kind of fake apple. Somewhat expensive, and I'm not sure of shipping to Ottawa, but it's worth looking into.