First "good" batch | wanted to share

[mylosol]

So I've been a member of this forum for a few months, and in that time I have learned a ton from all of you. For that I am grateful! I have taken a few wacks at cider and several "experiments" failed miserably... but that is how you learn.

On my 4th batch I hit... almost...

Recipe:

• 1 gallon Musselman’s: 100% Juice Apple Cider
• 1lb Light Brown Sugar
• Red Star Pasteur Blanc Yeast (1 pouch)
• 1Tsp Yeast Nutrient

Started with a gravity of 1.085 @ 60ºF - Fermented for 4 days before checking to find a gravity of 0.991 @ 60ºF (which based on my calculations gives me a ABV of 12.21% which is significantly stronger than I was going for) so I stopped the fermentation by cold crashing for 2 days to allow cider to clear and then stabilized with 1/2 Tsp Potassium Sorbate. I then decided to back sweeten with one can (12 oz) of Great Value Apple Juice Concentrate. After adding the concentrate I tested the gravity again, the gravity was now 1.018 @ 48ºF adjusted to 1.017 @ 60ºF which should yield an ABV of 8.93% – Still strong but much better than the original 12.21% I started with a few days ago. I then bottled and set to age in a mini-fridge I have for aging set to 50ºF

After aging for 3 months it was too strong and too sweet (IMO) and I was going to tweak the recipe and try again. That is until a friend, trying the still cider pointed across my kitchen at my SodaStream and said "we should carbonate this!"

I figured, why not and pushed a batch through the SodaStream and I was amazed how the addition of carbonation changed the cider, it took the "too sweet" bite out and made a quite enjoyable drink, in fact we polished off 2 bottles before realizing it was still the middle of the day... oops!

I will warn people wanting to carbonate cider with a SodaStream Be Careful - the cider acts very different from water, it will fizz up a ton during the pressurization phase, so you have to wait for it to settle before pressing the button again. Then when you release the pressure you have to do it SLOWLY for the same reason. The cider will foam and bubble aggressive so you want to bleed off the pressure slowly, taking breaks as you do to ensure you don't end up wearing the cider instead of drinking it.

All in all this has been a very pleasurable learning experience. I plan to tweak the recipe a bit anyway to see if I can perfect it to my taste. I did another batch of "Unicorn Blood" cider from a recipe I got here off this form, it's still young but already tasty!

 

[BeeDeeEff]

Started with a gravity of 1.085 @ 60ºF - Fermented for 4 days before checking to find a gravity of 0.991 @ 60ºF (which based on my calculations gives me a ABV of 12.21% which is significantly stronger than I was going for) so I stopped the fermentation by cold crashing for 2 days to allow cider to clear and then stabilized with 1/2 Tsp Potassium Sorbate. I then decided to back sweeten with one can (12 oz) of Great Value Apple Juice Concentrate. After adding the concentrate I tested the gravity again, the gravity was now 1.018 @ 48ºF adjusted to 1.017 @ 60ºF which should yield an ABV of 8.93% – Still strong but much better than the original 12.21% I started with a few days ago.

How does adding apple juice concentrate remove the alchohol already present from it having been fermented? Did you add water to dilute it? If so disregard this, but the phrasing just striked me as odd.

Ethanol has a density very similar to water, so all a hydrometer reading will tell you is how much sugar is present, it doesn't measure presence of alcohol.

 

[mylosol]

How does adding apple juice concentrate remove the alchohol already present from it having been fermented? Did you add water to dilute it? If so disregard this, but the phrasing just striked me as odd.

Ethanol has a density very similar to water, so all a hydrometer reading will tell you is how much sugar is present, it doesn't measure presence of alcohol.

Maybe I didn't articulate what I did well enough causing confusion.

No, I did not add water, it was the addition of the apple juice concentrate that dilutes the brew, bringing down the Alcohol by Volume.

While sugar will change the hydrometer reading, a hydrometer does not measures sugar it measures the density of the liquid. By taking a beginning reading and an ending reading with a hydrometer one can plug those two values into a Alcohol By Volume Calculator.

So as far as I understand it, based on the gravity change you can tell the volume of alcohol as a percentage of the total volume.

If I'm wrong in this I certainly hope someone can correct me.

 

[eigua]

No, I did not add water, it was the addition of the apple juice concentrate that dilutes the brew, bringing down the Alcohol by Volume.

It doesn't work to alter the gravity by adding new dissolved solids after the fact and plug that into the calculation. If you added a bunch of sugar to your cider, you'd get a very high gravity reading because you altered the density of the fluid, but the alcohol would still be there and there wouldn't be enough change in volume to significantly affect the ABV. Conversely, if you were to add a gallon of water to your cider, your gravity reading wouldn't change a whole lot from the 0.991 FG (would get a little closer to 1.000), but you would be seriously changing the volume of fluid and halving the ABV to 6.1%.

Assuming a 1 gallon original volume, you only increased the volume by 9.375% by adding 12 oz of fluid to it giving you a final ABV of 11.065%.

If you're looking for an 8% cider, you many not even have to add any sugar. I'm sure it can vary from brand to brand and bottle to bottle, but the Kirkland apple juice I used for cider was 1.062 straight out of the bottle.

 

[mylosol]

It doesn't work to alter the gravity by adding new dissolved solids after the fact and plug that into the calculation. ...

Assuming a 1 gallon original volume, you only increased the volume by 9.375% by adding 12 oz of fluid to it giving you a final ABV of 11.065%.

Oh, okay that makes sense. I thought about it after I posted the reply that may have been a failure in my understanding and logic... so is there a way to determine the true ABV after back sweetening with a liquid?

 

[eigua]

Oh, okay that makes sense. I thought about it after I posted the reply that may have been a failure in my understanding and logic... so is there a way to determine the true ABV after back sweetening with a liquid?

It's just a dilution by volume. Whether or not the added liquid has sugar dissolved in it is irrelevant. As long as you know the starting ABV, starting volume of liquid, and new final volume, you can find it.

Dilution formula

C1 * V1 = C2 * V2
12.21 * 128 = x * (128 + 12)
12.21 * 128 = x * 140
(12.21 * 128) / 140 = x
1562.88 / 140 = x
x = 11.16342857142857% ABV

There are also alcohol dilution calculators but they seem mostly geared towards diluting distilled spirits down to a certain strength.

 

[MandySwift]

As for involved calculators, I'd like to recommend Solution Dilution Calculator. Hope it can be helpful.