Help me

[chwayock]

5 gallons of apple juice
1/2 gallon of blueberry juice
1 lb brown sugar

Onto s-05 yeast cake from blonde ale

Og 1.052

8 days of primary

Racked to secondary with sg of 0.996

Tastes kinda bland...

Plan to back sweeten with concentrate keg and carb. Is this going to improve with time? Will it clear? How dry will this be??


Thanks

 

[Yooper]

Yes, it will clear and improve with a little age. At .996, it's as dry as it's going to get probably although it could drop a few more points.

 

[roadymi]

Backsweetening with concentrated apple juice will improve the apple flavor. I think sweetness in general brings out more flavor. Personally I shoot for 1.012-1.02

Remember if you sweeten you have to take steps to neutralize the yeast.

 

[chwayock]

Backsweetening with concentrated apple juice will improve the apple flavor. I think sweetness in general brings out more flavor. Personally I shoot for 1.012-1.02

Remember if you sweeten you have to take steps to neutralize the yeast.

What do you recommend I do in a keg??

 

[roadymi]

What do you recommend I do in a keg??

Well.....sorbate and sulphite is safest, however if you are going to keg and keep chilled until consumed you should be ok.

I don't notice much taste difference from the sorbate and sulphites so I go ahead and use them, partly cause I can't always fit all my filled kegs in my kegerator.

 

[chwayock]

Thanks. I'm a little hesitant to use sulfates but I may try that. Should I add it to the secondary a day or two before back sweetening? And kegging

 

[dinnerstick]

sulfates won't do anything. sulfite (as in potassium metabisulfite) together with potassium sorbate is what is used, but you need to get rid of the yeast first by careful racking. cold crash first if possible, then rack carefully, add your chemicals carefully (ie don't overdo it or the cider will be nasty, guaranteed), sweeten to taste. but personally, if i had the space, i would just keg it as is and keep it cold, i have done this with s05 and it has worked perfectly. just remember that if you want to bottle some from the tap later on it will still contain active yeast and sugar and therefore could get dangerous. however pasteurizing these bottles after you cap them and let them warm to room temp is simple; since pressure is very low compared to bottle conditioning there is (almost) no danger of explosions