bottle carbonation

[The Moravian]

I brewed a gallon of marines cider with 12 oz of Apple juice concentrate. Racked to secondary after two weeks, bottled a week later with carb drops. Still has just enough sweetness but has not carbonated after four weeks at 68. Any suggestions?

 

[mysteryshrimp]

A question so obvious that I feel silly asking it, but you didn't pasteurize the cider before bottling, did you?

How sweet is enough? You could re-inoculate with new yeast in the bottles if you are sure that you're not lighting a fuse for bottle bombs. I have done that with a Belgian Dark Strong that had all of the yeast die in bulk aging.

 

[The Moravian]

I would put the flavor in the semi dry range. It definitely has residual sugar. I was very careful racking it to secondary and no visible fermentation occurred for a week so I bottled with carb drops. I am afraid it might make bombs with more yeast. Thinking of just drinking it as an apfelwein as it tastes pretty good as a still cider. Just trying to solve a mystery as I am a noob.

 

[Pickled_Pepper]

What were your starting and ending gravities? Also what yeast did you use? I'm just wondering if your yeast might have hit it's alcohol tolerance.

 

[siebercider]

I've found that warming up my cider even a few degrees makes a difference in how long it takes to carb. You may try warming it up to 70+.

 

[The Moravian]

So.I didn't take readings because I was too new at the time to realize the importance. I used muntons ale yeast. So I don't think I hit the alcohol tolerance because I made and identical batch and added some frozen blackberries. OG on that batch was 1.060 and is now 1.012 and the cider is dry as any dry white wine I have ever tasted. I added more berries yesterday and fermentation fired right back up.