Bottling Cider early

[jshancockguitar]

I had an idea that I wanted some feedback on.

I put some cider in the fermenter a week ago. I used simple apple juice (no preservatives) and some champagne yeast. I want it a little sweet, so I thought about just bottling it early so I wouldn't have to backsweeten. So my logic was: let it ferment for a week (I know it would be low abv) and then bottle it in my plastic bottles. Let those bottles get to the right firmness and shock the yeast in the fridge/freezer and then let bottle condition in the fridge for a week or longer.

I know this is a cheap way of going about it, but I just am not in the mood for dry cider.

Any thoughts?

 

[bernardsmith]

No expert on this but will you know how much CO2 you are in fact creating in those bottles? What was the sugar content of the apple juice? What is the sugar content in the cider you are bottling? (half the weight - the weight of the sugar is converted into CO2... A pound of fermentable sugar from the apples will result in half a pound of CO2 and that ain't bupkes!).
How much of the CO2 that the yeast produced in the first week has been removed? How many volumes of CO2 are you asking those bottles to contain and so at what pressure will the gas be held at when you open a bottle and release all that gas at once? How high is your ceiling so that it won't be painted with cider? (I assume that the plastic bottles won't explode ... but I don't know how many volumes of CO2 they are built to withstand.

 

[jshancockguitar]

Man, I'm not sure to most of those questions. For the juice the hydrometer measured around 1.00 ish (I could be saying that wrong. I am away from all my stuff right now, so I am a little off. I do know it was where all my research said it was supposed to be.

I have an air lock in a clear car boy, so I am just monitoring the bubbles. For the bottles, they are plastic, and I will watch for firmness.

 

[Maylar]

Refrigerating your cider will stop fermentation, or at least slow it to a crawl, so your plan is technically doable. You will have sediment in your bottles though.

 

[Maylar]

I assume that the plastic bottles won't explode ... but I don't know how many volumes of CO2 they are built to withstand.

The bottom of a PET bottle pops out at about 40 PSI, but I've read that they'll handle 100+ before blowing.

 

[Lodestone]

From dumb ass childhood experience with dry ice and coke bottles it doesn't take much for a coke bottle to blow its cap off. The bottle itself rarely would explode but the cap would shoot off and create a rocket that would go 60-80 feet straight up. That much force would pretty much destroy any object in my house. So in short this is something I would NEVER EVER try at home. Bottle pasteurizing would be the only way to do this safely, but plastic gets weak under heat so that may not be an option either.

 

[jshancock]

Then what would be a good way to backsweeten it then?

 

[MarkKF]

Then what would be a good way to backsweeten it then?

The easiest and safest is to add xylitol to sweeten (to your taste) then add just enough honey, cane sugar, corn sugar or brown sugar to carb. Then sit and forget.

 

[bernardsmith]

Wine makers back sweeten by
1. ensuring that all fermentation has in fact ended. So you take hydrometer readings spaced out over a few days (or even weeks) to make sure that the gravity is rock solid stable.
2. Then you add K-meta and K-sorbate in tandem and that prevents any yeast from reproducing while inhibiting further fermentation.
3. Then a few hours (I would wait a day but some folk do this straightaway) later you add any kind of sugar you like in the amount you prefer to produce the sweetness you want. Personally, I would bench test to see how much sugar fits the acidity and alcohol level of the cider... After that you can bottle.
A word of caution: there may be a significant amount of CO2 still absorbed in the cider. A good indication - but not a perfect one is the clarity of the cider - if it is cloudy you know that you have CO2 trapped in the liquid.
Now if you chill that cider and then bring it back to room temperature in sealed bottles you are more likely to create bottle bombs or at least volcanoes of juice when you crack open a bottle (This is one reason that champagne is always chilled - ie to avoid such a volcano) but if you have deliberately degassed the cider before bottling then you should have no trouble.

 

[Skylark]

...from dumb ass childhood experience...

Haha, my first 'brewing' experience was pulverizing a bunch of half-rotten apples using a brick as a hammer & cramming them into 2L soda bottles. After a couple weeks there were vinegar bombs going off in the woodshed.

According to the water rocket folks, you can expect the bottle to hold about 160 psi, best- (or worst, considering the blast damage) case: http://www.wra2.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=378

The lore also has it that a bottle feels very firm at 20 psi and rock-hard above 30 psi, so you should probably be ok if you refrigerate them once they feel firm.