Cider with potassium sorbate

[jamesjensen1068]

Here is a question. I have a batch of cider going currently using WLP775 English Cider Yeast from White Labs. As an experiment I'm wondering if I were to dump some apple juice WITH potassium sorbate on the yeast cake...could I end up with a semi-sweet cider as the yeast should crap out before it would ferment out completely???

What do you think?

Cheers

 

[jkarp]

Potassium sorbate is essentially a condom for yeast. It only stops reproduction - not kill them. Therefore, your nice big yeast cake will gladly chew through the new sugar.

 

[jamesjensen1068]

My thought is that there may not be enough yeast to get thru all the sugar so the potassium sorbate would end the fermentation and I would end up with residual sweetness left in the cider. What OG should I start with to accomplish this???

Cheers

 

[jkarp]

You need to re-read what I said. Your yeast cake is billions upon billions of living yeast cells. They don't need to reproduce to eat ALL your new sugar.

For potassium sorbate to be even remotely effective, you need to get as much yeast as possible out of the finished cider. Cold crash the finished cider for a couple weeks, rack to a secondary, and then add your sorbate spiked juice. Even with this plan, the sorbate only buys you time. Eventually, the remaining living yeast will consume your backsweetning sugar.

 

[jamesjensen1068]

Got it, sorry I misunderstood. Guess I'm wanting to do things in reverse order

 

[Scallywag]

Use potassium sorbate and camden tablets as a one-two punch.

 

[therealrsr]

Sorry, meant for a new thread so I deleted.