fermentation, sweetening question...

[Cidernewbie2777]

I am new to making cider but very excited! I was wondering if there is any problem with killing the yeast off when the cider has the right amount of sweeteness to my palate. basically not letting it fully eat all the sugar and then keg and carb. thoughts?

 

[bernardsmith]

Hi Cidernewbie2777 - and welcome. Others on this forum may disagree with my opinion but how do you intend to "kill" the yeast? By cooking the cider? Not a problem if you think that cooked apple juice is suitable for cider. Additionally, apple juice is pectin rich, and so cooking the juice will set the pectins. Set pectins are great for jam or jelly, not so good for wines and ciders.
IMO, a better approach to sweetening cider is to remove the yeast (by cold crashing multiple times and racking the cider off the yeast) and then stabilize the liquor with K-meta and k-sorbate. You can then back-sweeten the cider with any sugar source you prefer.

 

[Maylar]

If you can keg then you've got it licked. Simply let the ferment finish completely and after the cider clears stabilize and sweeten to taste.

 

[MarkKF]

Cold crash & rack
Repeat
Then pasteurize

 

[Cidernewbie2777]

i have some sorbistat k to add to must. its been fermenting for 2 weeks and is now pretty clear. should i keg it now or wait some more?

 

[ericbw]

Cider improves with age. So if you keg now, I would still give it a month in the keg and more will settle out during that time) before drinking.

Have you checked the gravity, or going by taste?

 

[MarkKF]

When I keg I wait at least a month. If you don't bump or shake the leg the first two pours are usually cloudy.

 

[billsea]

I hate to disagree with B Smith. Learned so much from him.

I usually wait until the gravity is about 1.008 and then bottle and heat pasteurize. Heating the cider to 140 - 145 is not cooking. I don't notice any difference in flavor after heating. Not sure how you would do this for kegging, but heat pasteurize to stop fermentation and save sugar works for me.
If you add pectic enzyme at the start the pectin will settle out. Then rack. There will not be much pectin remaining to create a haze. My cider is naturally sweet and clear.
Multiple racking seems like too much work.

 

[fofusak]

Another way is to sweeten with a non-fermentable sweetener like sorbitol. You can add priming sugar and sorbitol. You'll get a bottle-carbed cider, with some sweetness, but it won't explode and you don't have to pasteurize.

Disclaimer: Never tried this approach, these sweeteners like sorbitol, sucralose, xylitol give me the worst migraines. But I've read of people that do it and are happy.

 

[Cidernewbie2777]

Why is it neccesary to pasteurize?

 

[Cidernewbie2777]

Thanks by the way too everyone who replied. I see there are many different ways to tackle this...

 

[bernardsmith]

Why is it neccesary to pasteurize?

The act of pasteurization kills any yeast and so stops fermentation, dead. BUT determining when you have reached the level of sweetness you want is often a hit or a miss as you would need to continually monitor the gravity as it drops. Adding heat helps set pectins - so creates a hazy cider and spoils the flavor unless of course your apple juice comes from a supermarket shelf and not from an orchard pressing juice for hard cider from cider apples and not table apples.

Simply "cold crashing" can leave enough yeast cells in suspension to allow for fermentation to restart immediately or even months after you bottle and if there is significant residual sugar you will then create bottle bombs - literally. An effective means of ensuring that no refermentation is to cold crash repeatedly over a few weeks and then add K- sorbate and K-meta. But commercial cideries and wineries tend to filter their ciders using filters that will block anything smaller than .5 of a micron and that is enough to hold back every yeast cell. But to use such filters you need to have a very clear and bright cider with no fruit particulates to clog the filters.

 

[Drewed]

Trying to catch a cider at the exact right point, and then trying to stop the fermentation at that point - especially using modern brewing yeasts which tend to be pretty hardy, is very difficult at best. I've had ciders continue to ferment while in the fridge. I feel the best practice is to let the ciders ferment to as low as they will go, and then back sweeten.

 

[Silver79]

To kill off yeast.

 

[Silver79]

To stop the yeast from eating the remaining sugars. It kills the yeast.