Bottling

[WalterMitty]

I just bottled some of my cider directly after primary with FG OF 1.000.. For one of the bottles, I added nothing, and put it in the fridge with a closed swing top. The other bottle I added some pectic enzyme, closed it with a swing top and left it out. I put the other half in secondary with some pectin enzyme. I read that pectic enzyme can leave behind sugar... Do I run the risk of having any one of those bottles explode, even the one I just put in the fridge. If I wanted to sweeten any of them, is stevia a good route? I know I probably added the pectic a little late, oh well. I'm just trying some different things out. If I wanted to carb, when do I add the sugar, can I do that after I bottle...?

 

[javalin]

They shouldn't explode. Even if there is some additional fermentation that happens you shouldn't get enough CO2 build up for an explosion.
I don't believe Stevia is a fermentable sugar, so you could use it to backsweeten, but I think it tastes like crap, but that's just my opinion.
You can add sugar for carbing after you've put your cider in bottles, but I would recommend adding it right before bottling to ensure an even sugar distribution.

 

[Yooper]

Pectic enzyme is used to break up pectin in fruit wines. It helps with clarity, as well as getting more juice out of the fruit. It is generally added when mixing up the must, before the yeast.

Adding it now won't hurt, but it won't do anything either. It doesn't affect the sugar level.

 

[WalterMitty]

Thanks! Also, what's the deal with back sweetening? How do you go about doing so

 

[bernardsmith]

IMO, the best way to back sweeten is to first make certain that there is effectively no fermentable sugar left in your cider (or wine). You can do this by taking hydrometer readings several days apart and determining that there is no change in the readings. A cider with a reading of 1.000 sounds to me as if there may be some sugar left to ferment. Cider can easily drop to .996 or even lower.
Once you have determined that there is no sugar left I would chill the cider to encourage any active yeast remaining to drop out of suspension. After a couple of weeks of chilling I would rack the cider off the lees and then add K-meta and k-sorbate (you really need both in tandem to prevent any further fermentation). I would then bench test by adding known and measured small amounts of sweetener (could be sugar or honey or maple syrup or apple concentrate or ???) to fixed amounts of cider. If you know that you prefer this cider sweetened to a gravity of 1.005 or 1.010 or ?? then you use the quantity of sweetener that will raise the gravity to that level. The K-meta and K-sorbate added to the cider from which you have removed the viable yeast will mean that that sugar will not be fermented. Downside, though, is that none of that sugar can be used to prime the cider so it will be sweet AND still - (not effervescent).
I am sure others on this forum have other techniques that involve pasteurization and some may have techniques that ask you to throttle the yeast while there is still a quantity of residual sugar in the cider. Mead makers, for example, often go for a technique that involves using yeasts that cannot tolerate the quantity of alcohol they produce - resulting in a sweet mead because of the amount of sugar left "on the table" by the yeast "wasted" from alcohol poisoning.