more help with my first batch of cider from a kit. Advice needed :)

[Nescent]

Hi guys,
I posted earlier about a yeast question and now I have another question that I am unsure about and would love some advice.

I am making a cider out of a kit but I have deviated, I'll give the normal process, my process and then my question.

I think my cider kit was called Blackrock out of new zealand. Its instructions were:

1. disolve 1kg of sugar in 2l of boiling hot water
2. add extract to hot water
3. fill to 23l mark
4. add 7g of provided cider yeast
5. stir and let sit for 10-14 days or when cider hits gravity of 1060
6. sterlize bottles, add 3g of sugar, invert bottles 4 times to disolve sugar and let sit 5 weeks.

Here's what I did with some advice from brewing clerks

1. disolve 1kg of dextrose in 2l hot water
2. add extract to hot water
3. add 1L of apple juice concentrate (It says to add this to 23l of water, I instead used this to replace 1L of water)
4. fill to 23l mark
5. add 25g of champagne yeast (as per suggestions on the forum)
6. stir and take og

OG was 1065.

My question/situation is this.

The original instructions say to leave the cider until it stops bubbling 10-14 days later or when it gets to a gravity of 1060. My cider started at 1065, I cannot see how it should stop brewing with a 5 point difference. With that also said, I cannot understand how that kit might've started off with a gravity much higher then 1060 when I am at 1065 with using dextrose and an additional liter of juice.

I checked my cider yesterday, (day 6) and it is currently at 1006 gravity. This means that the cider is currently sitting at 7.9% alcohol (59/7.46), and when I lift the lid to see the action I get a strong alcohol smell off the cider.

What should I be doing right now? If this was your cider, what would you be doing? Would you let it go the full 10-14 days then bottle? At what point is it to much fermentation? Will the gravity rise from 1006 to a lower alchohol level over the next few days? Would you start bottling it now and throwing it in the fridge to stop the fermentation?

I am just not experienced enough to know what to do at this point, and while I don't mind ruining a batch to know whats going on/wrong, I really would like to keep it going to see something amazing through to the end

 

[frydogbrews]

the alcohol smell is from the sugar being added and just a young cider. you can bottle after two weeks but it will be cloudy and need more time to age. the sugar added will make it need more aging. yeast selection will also help with this.
bottom line, if you don't have a secondary glass carboy, let it sit in the primary for a month, then bottle from there and sit for another month in the bottle.
once it is "done" fermenting, the yeast will clean up some if its own waste in the beer and add body while removing undersirable characters.
essentially, just let er sit for awhile.

 

[Tw0fish]

I am, no offense, skeptical of the gravities listed - 1.065 to 1.060 would leave you at 0.65% abv. Then you added apple juice concentrate, which should "buff" your sugar content at least a little bit.. and has not? Unless it was some manner of add-your-own-sugar concentrate, you should be seeing a wider gap than that.

Having said that - which yeast was provided, and which was used? If you were given a, ehm, low-speed kind of yeast with the kit then perhaps it is supposed to be done at 8% or so (this makes a pretty tasty cider, in my humble opinion..) But some champagne yeasts go to 18% if you let them (which I have not tried but am told that this makes a pretty tasty but very dry cider that needs to be aged for several months to be really good.)

I offer this - if you're happy at 8%, and it's the right amount of sweet (it will still taste like cheap vodka and apple juice til it ages a bit) chuck it in the fridge and keep it there (cold doesn't kill the yeast - only makes it go dormant) and drink. If you want it drier, or you've got a few months to ignore it, let the yeast peter out and you'll probably be in Apfelwein territory.

Better yet- if you've got a smaller carboy, do half and half

 

[Nescent]

Hi Twofish, no offense taken, I probably didn't word it correctly but you probably didn't read it correctly either.

After I did all of my steps, I tested the OG to be at 1.065. 6 days later its gravity was 1.006.

The confusion must be from where I was trying to sort out why the cider kits instructions would say it should be at 1.060 when it is ready to bottle - which would be 10-14 days after brewing began.

My question was how can the basic kit, using basic white sugar start high enough to settle down to 1.060 after 10-14 days brewing, when my approach - with all the extra sugar in it, started off at 1.065 and after 6 days dropped to 1.006 (tested today, I am at 1.000 straight at day 8, which means its looking to be closers to 9%).

I tasted the brew and so far its a bit rough, a bit dry and not really that sweet, but its still happily brewing away. At this point, as I don't have any carboys, just my original primary fermenter (plastic kit), I'll be leaving it in the primary for another 3 weeks then probably bottle and let it sit there for a month or two.

 

[Tw0fish]

I'd humbly submit that the misprint is thus in your instructions there is no stinkin' way it'd move .005 in six days unless you're fermenting in your igloo!

It will not get any less alcoholic, nor any sweeter, with time. With age, it will get apple-y again, though! You can definitely backsweeten, so long as you stabilize it with sorbate/sulfite or keep it cold until it's all gone.

Worst case scenario, let it age and drink it with a splash of lemon-lime soda or something like it. Welcome to the adventure - I've never made a mistake myself, just lots and lots of cider that turned out somewhat unlike my original intentions

 

[Nescent]

Thanks for the help!!

I am ready to bottle, my girlfriend has said the wants it sweet. So in my reading, I can add lactose at this point to sweeten then bottle and add carbonation drops.

How much lactose should be added to roughly 13 gallons of cider? I'll be bottling into 740ml PET bottles. Should I put one carb tablet or two? For beer in these bottles I'd use 2 but unsure with cider