Low sugar content this season … chaptalize?

[Sballe]

So - just finished pressing my apples for a total of about 15 gallons of juice. This will be the base of my cider-production this season … might have a few late-season apples later on…

BUT the thing is … the gravity is quite low this year, only 1,044 ! Usually about 10 points higher.

Now I don’t know what to do?
- just make the cider, and have lower abv?
- add some sugar to bump it up about ten - 15 points?
- or add some kryo-concentrate also to bump up about 10-15 points.

Flavor and mouthfeel is most important to me - but sometimes I find that too low ABV makes it taste ‘wrong’ in a way.

What would you guys do in this case?

Thx

 

[Rish]

You might try frozen apple juice concentrate to bump up the abv without thinning it as much as straight sugar. Good luck l

 

[Chalkyt]

Looks like my thinking is the same as Rish's response which arrived while I was pondering the arithmetic involved. When I went to post, a message came up that there was another response. Any how here is the rough arithmetic as I see it FYI.

I guess that time is of the essence since you probably need to do something to avoid the juice "going off". Early in my cider making I followed some recipes that involved chapitalising with white and brown sugar but the results weren't all that exciting. Mind you, that might also have been because I wasn't making very good cider.

I have tried making my own FAJC by freezing and thawing, then using this as "priming sugar" before bottling and it worked quite well, so I would look to go down that path by freeze concentrating some of the juice and adding it to the 1.044 juice to bring it up to 1.055 or higher. I would expect this to maintain your original flavour (but at the expense of losing some volume).

I must stress that I haven't done this to increase OG, but it is what I would do.

Jolicoeur's chapter on "ice cider" has a good description of how to do freeze concentrate AJ. Basically it involves freezing the juice then letting it start to thaw. The melting juice is allowed to drip out of the frozen container, leaving frozen water (ice) behind. The concentrated juice has a higher melting point than water so drips out first (a bit like a kid sucking the flavour out of an ice block).

Generally, I have been able to get about SG 1.080 to 1.100 for a yield of roughly 50% from a single freeze/thaw. Re freezing and thawing the FAJC yields 50% of this, but at an even higher concentration. The level of sugar and other minor non-fermentables you are dealing with is roughly...

SG 1.045 = 115g/L, SG 1.055 = 140g/L, so you need to add 25g/L. Picking an easily achieved FAJC of say SG 1.080 = 200g/L, you would need to add between 100ml and 150 ml per litre to get to 140g/L. In your case depending on the SG of the FAJC, this translates into between one and two gallons of "home-made" FAJC for your 15 gallons of cider. Of course, it is a "suck it and see" process but you could try a small sample to see how it works out.

Cheers!

 

[Sballe]

Looks like my thinking is the same as Rish's response which arrived while I was pondering the arithmetic involved. When I went to post, a message came up that there was another response. Any how here is the rough arithmetic as I see it FYI.

I guess that time is of the essence since you probably need to do something to avoid the juice "going off". Early in my cider making I followed some recipes that involved chapitalising with white and brown sugar but the results weren't all that exciting. Mind you, that might also have been because I wasn't making very good cider.

I have tried making my own FAJC by freezing and thawing, then using this as "priming sugar" before bottling and it worked quite well, so I would look to go down that path by freeze concentrating some of the juice and adding it to the 1.044 juice to bring it up to 1.055 or higher. I would expect this to maintain your original flavour (but at the expense of losing some volume).

I must stress that I haven't done this to increase OG, but it is what I would do.

Jolicoeur's chapter on "ice cider" has a good description of how to do freeze concentrate AJ. Basically it involves freezing the juice then letting it start to thaw. The melting juice is allowed to drip out of the frozen container, leaving frozen water (ice) behind. The concentrated juice has a higher melting point than water so drips out first (a bit like a kid sucking the flavour out of an ice block).

Generally, I have been able to get about SG 1.080 to 1.100 for a yield of roughly 50% from a single freeze/thaw. Re freezing and thawing the FAJC yields 50% of this, but at an even higher concentration. The level of sugar and other minor non-fermentables you are dealing with is roughly...

SG 1.045 = 115g/L, SG 1.055 = 140g/L, so you need to add 25g/L. Picking an easily achieved FAJC of say SG 1.080 = 200g/L, you would need to add between 100ml and 150 ml per litre to get to 140g/L. In your case depending on the SG of the FAJC, this translates into between one and two gallons of "home-made" FAJC for your 15 gallons of cider. Of course, it is a "suck it and see" process but you could try a small sample to see how it works out.

Cheers!

I have tried freeze-concentration before for making ice cider - and it is pretty simple. Only thing I haven’t been able to figure out — the freeze concentration increase the sugars … but does it not also increase the acids? Since my apples are quite acidic already I am a little nervous that I will end up with something very sour ….

 

[Miraculix]

You'll end up at around 5% abv, that's exactly the sweet spot for cider if you ask me. Light a candle for the cider goddess and thank her for the perfect juice that you have received!

 

[Sballe]

You'll end up at around 5% abv, that's exactly the sweet spot for cider of you ask me. Light a candle for the cider goddess and thank her for the perfect juice that you have received!

 

[Chalkyt]

Wow... that is an interesting question. Who said cider making is simple???

I understand that the melting point of apple juice is -1.5C, so I guess that the sugar and other elements in liquid form start to leach out above that temperature if their freezing point is less than 0C. I suppose that everything concentrates as the frozen water stays behind. Maybe the physicists among us can provide some wisdom.

 

[Rish]

quite acidic

In that case, maybe just some store bought FAJC used to make juice for drinking which should balance the acidity.

 

[Sballe]

In that case, maybe just some store bought FAJC used to make juice for drinking which should balance the acidity.

Cant g’et FACJ here unfortunately

 

[mattrix]

OT: how many apples did you press to get 15 US gallons?

 

[Sballe]

OT: how many apples did you press to get 15 US gallons?

I didn’t weigh the apples before the pressing but I usually get around 50% juice by weight (metric here so around 5 liters per 10 kilograms)