My (poor mans) ICE Cider attempt

[derrabe]

After reading another post on here I decided to give an ice cider a try using FAJC. I don't have the equipment or the freezer space to do this the traditional way. So here is what I did so far.

ICE Cider (Attempt  1)  (started 11/8/15)
6 – 12oz cans of thawed frozed apple juice concentrate
Added Water to fill rest of space in carboy
1 packet of Cider House select Cider yeast
1st Rack  - 1 Gallon Glass Carboy
OG: 1.096  23 Brix
MG: 1.000

I only have one glass gallon jug, so I siphoned the first carboy into a plastic sanatized 1 gallon jug temporarily.  I then cleaned the glass jug and then re-sanatized it.

Second Rack  1 Galllon  Carboy (11/17/15)
Added 1 – 12oz can of thawed frozen apple jucie concentrate
Topped of empty space with Indian Summer Apple Juice (about 1 cups worth at most)
MG: 1.000
AG: 1.020  (6 Brix)

Ok so my first question it has now been about 20 hours and I have not noticed anymore fermenting in the second rack. Since I add some AJ and APJC to top it off I was expecting it to ferment a little more but hopefully over time save some of the sweetness. Is it normal to still like this and that I maybe reached its limit on the yeast?

When I tasted it between racks and also getting the gravity readings it was very dry and since the MG reading is 1.000 I was not surprised. After adding the new juice and concentrate the reading is 1.020. IF say it starts the fermenting again and goes back down to 1.000 how would I figure out the ABV you I add the OG and the AG together then subtract the FG? I am trying to do this with out adding any artificial sweeteners and just want the yeast to reach its limit then stop eating the sugars. Looking for a desert type cider.

 

[jsiddall]

What you are doing is known as "step feeding" -- adding more sugar until the yeast will not ferment it. This allows you to control the final sweetness if done in small enough steps. What you cannot control directly is the final ABV. I would expect some more of the sugar you added to be fermented but it is possible the yeast was already at its tolerance before you added the extra concentrate and it won't go down any more. To be sure you could try raising the temperature to near the top end of the yeasts range.

To figure the final ABV add up all the sugar, both the initial and anything you added, then convert that to an SG and use that as the initial SG in your normal ABV calculation. Use the real measured ending SG as the final SG.