Carbing Apfelwein

[tully72]

Would love to hear from anyone who has carbed a batch of Apfelwein into 12 ounce bottles. How much sugar did you use… Any problems along the way. Just getting ready to do this tonight myself and would love to hear from you. Thanks…

 

[saramc]

An ounce per gallon should do it. Just add to primary, stir well and bottle away.
Helps if you warm a bit of apfelwine and dissolve sugar in it, do not boil it; or make an invert syrup; or toss sugar in blender to make it superfine and it dissolves PQD.

 

[Vigo_Carpathian]

I've noticed mine takes a couple months to carb in the bottles. You might want to add bottling yeast to help speed up the process.

 

[kevinstan]

I bottled mine and used coopers carb tabs. It's has now been 4 weeks and they are barely carbed. I keep opening a bottle to test it but its not quite there yet. I will let them keep sitting and testing them until they are all gone, or until I find out how long its going to take. Strange that my beer brews only take a couple of weeks with the same carb tabs. I haven't figured it out yet.

 

[Kdog22]

How long will the bottles of apfelwein stay carbed since they can take a couple months to build up the carbonation?

 

[Revvy]

How long will the bottles of apfelwein stay carbed since they can take a couple months to build up the carbonation?

Once something is carbed in a sealed environment it will never lose carbonation, at least not for years and years. I've had 4-5 year old Apfelwein that was perfectly carbed.

 

[Kdog22]

Once something is carbed in a sealed environment it will never lose carbonation, at least not for years and years. I've had 4-5 year old Apfelwein that was perfectly carbed.

Awesome. So basically once the carbonation builds, it will build up to a certain pressure of carbonation level and then stop and stay there? Sorry for the dumb questions..

 

[brewcephus]

I bottled mine and used the regular carbing method that I use for carbing beer. It took 2 weeks and its perfectly carbed and tastes great

 

[HBngNOK]

Awesome. So basically once the carbonation builds, it will build up to a certain pressure of carbonation level and then stop and stay there? Sorry for the dumb questions..

I think the level of carbonation depends on how much sugar there is for the yeast to eat. More sugar = more food = more pressure. If you back-sweeten, there will be a lot more sugar than there will be if you only use 4~5 ounces of "priming" sugar.

I like my apfelwein almost apple juice sweet, so I pasteurize per the stickie in the cider forum when it's nicely carbonated.

 

[tully72]

Brewcephus, Might I ask did you bottle directly from the primary? Also how many weeks old was it when you bottled and carbed?

 

[Johnnyhitch1]

Just cracked a bottle from a batch i did exactly 1 year ago....PERFECT.

5oz in 5gal. as to how long it took im not sure but i knew it would taste like hooch the first 4-5 months i just decided to leave it for a year and boy am i glad i did.
Used 20% grape juice and it came out with a touch on tannin and beautiful bouquet of apples, fresh cut apples. Amazing

 

[johns455]

I want to bottle and carb the batch I am making, I was thinking of adding 1 pint of apple juice per gallon as a back sweetener right before I bottle it, I have never carbonated before so what do you think? To much? To little? About right?

 

[bernardsmith]

How much sugar is in the pint of apple juice?

 

[johns455]

How much sugar is in the pint of apple juice?

56 grams or about 1/4 cup

 

[johns455]

Wow that sounds like a lot, bottle says 28 grams for 8oz, 16 oz in a pint, 200 grams in a cup of sugar, so a little over 1/4 cup per pint. So a little over 1.25 cups for a 5 gallon batch.

 

[johns455]

28 grams is 1 ounce, so if 1 once per gallon is recommended, I should cut this to 1/2 pint per gallon and it should be about right.

Thanks Bernardsmith for getting me to start adding it up lol

 

[bernardsmith]

My philosophy is that we often have the answers - we just need to ask the right questions...