A little claraification needed

[Panik]

Okay so I have approximately ~6-7 gallons of cider chillin' in my fridge and need a little assistance in finishing it up.

The cider is comprised of organic cider, lemon juice black tea, and very dark brown unrefined sugar. Montrachet yeast was used and at the time it was added the gravity was 1.066. The only thing that I recall being heated to any significant temperature was the water utilized to brew the tea.

Fermentation started around the 24th of November and occurred at ~76' for the entire fermentation period. Primary was topped off on 12/17 and the cider was racked to secondary on 1/23 along with pectic enzyme. (I realize I should have added the enzyme initially)

My problem is that while a significant amount of lees was left in primary the cider is still extremely cloudy and has not shown any signs of settling out further. I went to my LHBS and picked up sparkaloid, potassium sorbate, and potassium metabisulfite. Before mucking about several questions come to mind.

1) What are the correct dosings per gallon for the sorbate and K-meta in cider? (I know its on this forum somewhere, but I'll be buggered if I can find it)

2) Can I stabilize and add the sparkaloid at the same time? And if not what would be the correct order of doing things.

3) I am planning on backsweetening with concentrate after stabilizing. Should I add the sparkaloid before or after adding the concentrate?

Again apologies, I know that all of this information is on the forum but I am having a great deal of difficulty in pullling it all together. Any suggestions would be appreciated

 

[CandleWineProject]

1. Follow the packaging.
2&3. Never worked with Sprkaloid, so I can't answer those ones.

A little odd using tea. Where you trying to increase the tannins?

 

[Panik]

Ahhhhh, if only I had packaging that included instructions. LHBS dude measured out packages of the Sorbate and K-meta and neglected to include dosing instructions, and of course me being who I am I overlooked asking while I was at the store.

I have a pretty good idea as to how to add the the sparkaloid... I'm hoping for some help with the dosing for the above two chemicals and some guidance about the order of things consideration fermentation has already completed.

In regards to the tea - yes, I was trying to add some tannins back in. Got the idea from Graham's English Cider receipe. From the sampling I've done it seems to have helped. Unfortunately us folks down in Florida have a bit of difficulty getting decent cider to work with.

 

[jcobbs]

I suggest this order: (1) clarify; (2) stabilize; (3) backsweeten. You want to remove as much yeast as possible by settling and racking, to minimize the chance that some could "slip by" your k-meta & sorbate and restart fermentation. So the first order of business is to remove as much of the suspended solids as possible. Follow the instructions with the sparkalloid or do a search on here.

Sorbate is dosed at 1/2 tsp per gallon IIRC. Not sure about k-meta as I use campden tabs. Nevertheless wait until your cider is completely clear, then add the stabilizers to a fresh carboy and rack onto them. I would give that a few days, then take hydrometer readings on successive days to make sure fermentation is completely stopped. Then backsweeten to taste. If you see any lees then you may want to rack one more time before backsweetening, if you're really after a crystal clear cider.

Someone may have another suggestion, but my reasoning is you want to remove anything that might interfere with stabilization first, and then the last thing you want to do before bottling and drinking is make your final flavor adjustments. Good luck!

 

[Panik]

Many thanks for the sound advice!! That sounds like a good plan of attack. Hopefully if I'm lucky the sparkalloid will do what racking, cold crashing, and pectic enzyme has not.