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[2saints]

A friend and I are pressing 320lbs of a mix of macs, Cortland, and a small number of crabs.

My plan for this batch is to make a sweet hard cider for the holidays.

I plan to use a wine yeast specified for cider.

I want to back sweeten after fermentation is complete and am considering maltodextrine as it is non fermentable (as I understand it).

I was also considering flavouring with orange peel, cloves, and cinnamon to give it a mulled cider taste.

Any thoughts or suggeations would be appreciated. Here are some pics of our test press day.

 

[Yooper]

Malto dextrine isn't a sweetener, it's more of a "thickener" like you'd use for pudding or something. In very small amounts, it can give a little body to cider.

My son used 1 tablespoon of it in his bottled root beer. Well, he must have used more, because it turned out to be root beer Jell-o.

A sweetened still (not carbonated) cider is easy. You just wait until the cider is done, and totally clear, and then stabilize it with sorbate and campden. Then sweeten to taste.

For a carbonated sweet cider, that's alot trickier and either pasteurization is done (see the "sticky" thread in this forum), kegging is used to force carbonate, or non-fermentable sweeteners are used (like splenda or lactose).

 

[2saints]

Thanks for the info. How much maltodextrine will give a good mouth feel without overthickening?