First Cider Questions

[simmons]

Sorry if this has been talked about before but I couldn't find anything. For my first Cider I used 2 gallons of apple juice 2oz of corn sugar and Wine yeast.

First question is will I need to back sweeten this after primary ?
If so how do I go about doing this.

Second question will I be able to bottle this or is this recipe not really able to be carbonated in bottles with Priming sugar ?

Thanks for the help in advance.

Simmons

 

[manticle]

A bit more information is required.

Firstly has the cider finished fermenting? What's the gravity? Juice + dextrose will more than likely reach 1000 or even lower and it should be stable over several consecutive days before you consider bottling it. If it is finished properly then you can bulk prime to carbonate as you would anything else. It will be very dry at this point so you could backsweeten if you don't like dry cider.

To do this you need some unfermentable sugar that won't change the flavour profile. Lactose is one such sugar. Some people report success using splenda and I think there are others. I use lactose but I use it at the beginning of ferment. Basically just dissolve some in as small amount of water as you can manage, boil it up and let it cool then add it in with your bulk priming sugar.

If it has not finished fermenting you could play with getting a sweeter cider that carbonates naturally - I've never tried it and wouldn't recommend it on that basis. Best to know what you are doing if you're playing with active fermentation and glass.

 

[CandleWineProject]

The first question is phrased wrong. There is no need. It is your own personal taste as to if you want to back sweeten it. Like Manticle was saying, it has to be done fermenting and then stablized so that any additional sugar (or juice) added does not start fermenting again. Or you use artificial sweeteners that can't ferment.

Second question... well, it is really difficult to bottle carb a sweet cider without bottle bombs. The artifical sweetener is one solution, as is kegging. You could pasterize after bottling, but I don't really recommend that. However, if you decided you like the cider dry and decided not to back sweeten, then you should have no worries bottle carbing it. Or you could go sweet and not carbed without worries, also.